mac and cheese, and lasagna by the commu-
nity’s fire department. In another town, the
arm welcomes seem to be a
thing in river towns. As we
step from the canoes in Rising
Sun, Indiana, a woman zips by
in a golf cart and offers some of us a little
tour. Tracy and I go for it. The main street
faces the river, and like many of these towns,
Rising Sun has a colorful history. Our driver
points out a mansion built by someone who
got rich at the nearby casino.
Later, our entire group gets an official
tour by a local historian, who shows us one
of the oldest log structures still standing
in Indiana, as well as Smith Riggs’s house.
Riggs was a well-known blacksmith and
woodworker whom the state commissioned
to build two new “humane” electric chairs
in 1928. He always felt bad about his inven-
tion, the historian tells us, but apparently
the money was good.
A few days later in Vevay, we’re shown to
the park’s bathhouse for a hot shower, then
served homemade pulled pork sandwiches,
64
mayor cracks open a rare bottle of whiskey
for the group. In Westport, Kentucky, the
owner of Knock on Wood Café closes shop
to serve us a Mexican-themed feast, a wel-
come change from our usual diet of trail mix,
fruit chews, and jerky.
There are more than 50 river towns
along the Ohio River Recreation Trail, each
with its own unique history, quirks, and lo-
cal characters. Madison, Indiana, has 133
continuous blocks of architecture on the
National Register of Historic Places, plus a
great little diner, Hinkle’s Sandwich Shop.
The Ohio River also signifies an im-
portant border between the North and the TAKE ME TO THE RIVER
South. Pre–Civil War, it was the dividing CHARMING TOWNS AND
FRIENDLY PEOPLE ARE
line between slave states and free-soil states ALL ALONG THE OHIO
RIVER. ONE PADDLER
and so was crawling with patrollers and slave (BELOW RIGHT) GETS
hunters. It’s also home to key Underground A SURPRISE WELCOME
FROM HER BROTHERS.
Railroad sites such as the Rankin House,
which overlooks the river in Ripley, Ohio.
Ohio was a free state, but slaves could
still be apprehended under the Fugitive
Slave Law of 1850. John Rankin and his fam-
ily sheltered an estimated 2,000 slaves on
their way to Canada; they arrived by boat,
ferried over the river by an Underground
Railroad conductor in Kentucky, and took
what was called “100 steps to freedom” up
the banks to the Rankin estate. Today, all of
it is a museum.