This edited volume of personal stories and scholarly analysis will shed light on the 14-state Ohio River Region, underscoring its innovations in many fields and dispelling decades-long myths of rust belt decline. Rather, the Ohio River region has always been—and remains—a vital gateway of American commerce, history, politics, and society. For more than one hundred years, it was THE major gateway between the East and the West, the North and the South.
The Ohio River Gateway Region, home to 30 million people, encompasses a watershed of nearly 204,000 square miles and borders on six states (Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois). In addition, the watershed includes parts of eight other states (New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama). Formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers in Pittsburgh, the Ohio River flows southwesterly to take in waters from its largest tributaries, the Kanawha, Wabash, Green, Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers. Major metropolitan cities in the region include Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Columbus, Louisville, Lexington, Indianapolis, Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga.
Today, the centrally located Ohio River region boasts some of the largest cargo airports in the world, including Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, the primary hub of UPS, that ranks as the sixth-largest cargo airport in the world and the third-largest in the United States. Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International, the second-largest international hub of DHL, ranks as the sixth-busiest cargo airport in the nation.