The Wabash River is the state symbol of my home state, Indiana, and the second largest tributary to the Ohio River running 200 miles,forming the lower border twixt Indiana and Illinois.  Although the headwaters are in Ohio near Fort Recovery justs 30 miles distant, it becomes an all-Hoosier river–the longest free flowing river east of the Mississippi.  It’s the one mentioned in the song sung by Jim Nabors for years prior to the Indianapols 500 mile race. 

There have been violent bar fights over whether “Back Home Again In Indiana” is the state song or “On The Banks Of The Wabash.”  The songs are almost identical and I suspect some manner of plagerism might be involved here but the point of this essay is not music, but water.

The Wabash bottomlands are the last strongholds of the eastern deciduous forests.  Some trees along its shores still are 130 feet tall and six feet in diameter but the areas have been heavily forested.  Both Indiana and Illinois have provided protected areas.  The river also is home to endangered mussels which I will address later.
                                                                

The native Americans called the waterway Wah-Bah-Shik-Ki which translated into Pure White–a misnomer since the river runs muddy most of the year, draining 75 percent of the 92 counties of Indiana.  French explorers misunderstood the word and for years maps noted the river as the Quabache.  English settlers anglized it to its present name.
                                                              
George Rogers Clark defeated the British along the banks of the Wabash to gain control of the Northwest Territory leaving only native Americans to deal with.  In 1811, Governor William Henry Harrison and his troops defeated Tecumseh at the Battle of Tippecanoe, propelling him into the white house.  This was near Terre Haute.

When the river became too unreliable for transportation, the Wabash-Erie Canal was built but was short-lived.  In 1865, the locomotive arrived and the canal went down the river.
                                                 

In the early 1900s, pearling created a “pearl rush” of sorts.  Mussels produced mostly imperfect pearls however some were marketable bringing from $700 to $4000.00 each.

I don’t know why, but that reminds me of the time I was in the officers club at NAS Cecil Field.  There was a varnished mahogany board behind the bar with a rather large brazierre attached to it with a plaque below which read: ”Remember Pearl Harper”