First timer? In this (hopefully) once-a-day blog, I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48). I call this “landing.” I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near. I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location. To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is and what the various numbers and abbreviations mean), please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.
Dan – Before I do my usual landing thing, I must comment on the lengthy gap between landings. I mean, really – this blog is called “A Landing A Day!” Well, you’ve noted that it has kind of become “A Landing Every Other Day.” That is until this week. Work got a little crazy, and then, Bam! Willow & and the kids come for a four day visit. (For those who don’t know me, Willow is my daughter, and she has three daughters of her own, ages 5, 3 & 6 months).
I’ve got to sneak in a landing today, because tomorrow, we’re headed off to Eleuthera for a week. OK, so on to today’s landing . . .
I landed in a state that has been an OSer for as long as I can remember. But, as sometimes happen, the LG decides to avoid a particular state for an extended period of time. When that happens, it slowly creeps up into US-land. This is what happened to . . .OH; 24/24 (but now it’s PS!); 3/10; 8; 152.5.
Here’s my landing map (today’s landing is the centrally-located one. The other happened back in February of 2006.
I landed in the boonies, down in southern OH as you can see here:
Here’s my GE shot, showing that I landed in wooded uplands. This looks like a classic Appalachian landscape, where the fertile bottomlands are farmed. It looks bucolic. I bet there are some nice properties down in the hollers. In fact, the road you can see just north of my landing is “Trainers Hollow Road.”
Interestingly, I found a map showing the town of Waverly’s relationship to Appalachia. I’m not sure exactly how Appalachia is defined; I know that in Ohio, Appalachia is the non-glaciated portion of the state. The glaciers kind of ripped off the hill tops and filled in the valleys, so it’s much flatter in the glaciated areas (which begin not far west of my landing spot.)
Here’s an expanded GE shot. You can see the edge of Appalachia, just west of my landing: the less heavily forested area is not Appalachia – it’s flatter and more intensely farmed:
Anyway, I landed in the Chenoweth Ck watershed, on to Sunfish Ck, on to the Scioto R (5th hit, making the Scioto the 138th river on my list of rivers with five or more hits); to the Ohio (114th hit); to the MM (711th hit).
I’ve had a very difficult time in trying to decide which town to “feature.” I’m closest to Latham, which is nothing more than a crossroads and is predictably GD. The nearest town of substance is Waverly. While I’m sure Waverly’s a very pleasant (probably sleepy) little southern OH town, I couldn’t find too much of interest. I did find out that the Ohio & Erie canal ran through Waverly. Here’s a picture of the canal in operation:
Here’s some info from Wiki:
The Ohio and Erie Canal was constructed in the early 1800s, and connected the Cuyahoga River at Akron (which flows north into Lake Erie at Cleveland) with the Ohio River near Portsmouth.
The canal enjoyed a golden period of prosperity from the 1830s to the early 1860s, with a peak in revenue between 1852 and 1855. During the 1840s, Ohio was the third most prosperous state, owing much of that growth to the canal. Immediately following the Civil War, it became apparent that railroads would take the canal’s business. From 1861 until 1879, Ohio leased its canals to private owners who earned revenue from dwindling boat operation and the sale of water to factories and towns.
When the state took the canals back in 1879, it discovered that they had not been maintained, and that state lands surrounding the canals had been illegally sold to private owners. In many cases, canals were filled in for “health reasons”, only to find a newly laid railroad track on their right of way. Much State land was given away for free to politically savvy private owners.
In 1913, much of the canal system was abandoned after critical sections were destroyed by severe flooding.
Here’s a shot of the mural in the Waverly Post Office:
So anyway, the section of the canal in Waverly suffered the fate of most sections, and was filled in. I’ll close with this turn-of-the-century shot showing the canal in Waverly when it still had water. The caption says that this picture is about in the location of the Subway restaurant in Waverly:
That’ll do it.
KS
Greg
© 2009 A Landing A Day