Wabash River
— — a river that starts as almost nothing.
Not only on a wall.
“The Wabash begins in a low field in Mercer County, Ohio, just east of the Indiana line. From that quiet rise it runs west, gathers itself across northern Indiana, and turns south to form the long border with Illinois before joining the Ohio River. It is the longest free-flowing river east of the Mississippi. Most of its 810 kilometres lie ahead of it the day it leaves Ohio.
Wabash River, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Wabash River rises in Mercer County in western Ohio, near the town of Fort Recovery, about three kilometres east of the Indiana border. From its headwaters it runs roughly 810 kilometres west and south, crossing northern Indiana through Logansport, Lafayette, and Terre Haute, then forming the lower border between Indiana and Illinois before joining the Ohio River near the southern tip of Illinois. It is the longest tributary of the Ohio and the longest free-flowing river east of the Mississippi, untouched by mainstream dams along its full length.
The river's basin drains roughly 85,000 square kilometres across Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, most of it Indiana farmland. The Wabash is the state river of Indiana, named in the Indiana state song, On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away, written by Paul Dresser in 1897. Major tributaries include the Tippecanoe, the Salamonie, the Mississinewa, and the White, which more than doubles the river's flow near Mount Carmel, Illinois. Through Indiana, the river is generally shallow and slow, browned with sediment from the surrounding cropland.
The Ohio source is a quieter thing than the river's later reputation. Mercer County is farm country, flat to gently rolling, with section roads and a scatter of small towns. Fort Recovery, the nearest community to the headwaters, takes its name from the 1793 fort built after the defeat of General Arthur St. Clair's army the previous year. The actual rise is a slow seep through a low cornfield rather than a marked spring. Most of the river's long story lies west of here.