Scioto

The Scioto River runs south through Ohio to join the Ohio River. Its central valley contains a remarkable concentration of ancient earthworks: Indigenous builders raised great geometric enclosures and mounds here nearly two thousand years ago, in a tradition known as Hopewell. Much later the valley was home to Shawnee communities, whose towns stood along the Scioto and its tributaries.

In 1774 Virginia's governor Lord Dunmore advanced toward the Shawnee towns during the war named for him. A treaty negotiated at Camp Charlotte on the Scioto ended the fighting. In 1796 Nathaniel Massie laid out the American town of Chillicothe in the valley, taking a name used by several Shawnee towns. It later became the capital of the new state of Ohio.