Chattarawa

Chattarawa is a recorded Indigenous name for the Big Sandy River, which flows north from the wooded Appalachian hills to the Ohio. The river is formed by the meeting of the Tug and Levisa forks, whose valleys cut deep passages through the mountains. In 1750 the explorer Thomas Walker named the Levisa Fork during his travels through the region. Later in the century surveyors and settlers laid claim to land near the forks, adding new settlements to a country crossed by older Indigenous paths.