Ohio's first hydropower project -- a gristmill at the confluence of Wolf Creek and the Muskingum River some 20 miles from Ohio's first settlement at Marietta--had a shaky start.  Potts Mill opened in December 1790 but closed a month later when Wyandots and Lenni Lenape Indians killed settlers at nearby Big Bottom.  Starvation loomed in Marietta.  However, seven founders pooled their limited cash and anchored a makeshift pontoon mill in the Ohio River, specifically in the current east of Blennerhasset Island.  That winter the mill produced 25- 30 bushels of corn meal a day, barely enough to sustain the pioneers at fledgling Marietta.  Potts Mill was rebuilt in 1795, after the Treaty of Greene Ville established peace between white settlers and Native Americans.   For the next several decades Ohio relied on renewable and abundant water resources to grind grains, saw logs, and to power other mills.  That old, water-powered industry has not entirely disappeared.  Clifton Mill in Clifton is one the country's last water- powered gristmills.

Text courtesy of Steve Ostrander