Monroe and Lawrence Counties have the largest
limestone outcrops in the country; from their quarries has
come the stone for hundreds of public buildings and memorials
across the nation, including the Empire State Building,
the Pentagon, the National Cathedral, and Grand Central
Station. Besides limestone quarrying, the area is home to
wide-scale coal mining and, in the Evansville area, many
industries that have introduced tremendous pollution into
the Ohio River.
The region was one of the most important centers
in Indiana’s early history. Vincennes, on the lower
Wabash River, was the first European settlement in what
later became Indiana. Established by the French as a military
outpost in the 1730s, it became an important staging ground
for French and British explorers who vied for control over
the western frontier. Evansville, located near the convergence
of the Ohio and Wabash Rivers, soon became an important
city—the seventh largest in the state by the 1850s.
Nearby New Harmony was the site for a communal society established
in 1825, which proved to be a short-lived, but now famous,
experiment.
Pertinent ecosystems
Forests
Rivers
Wetlands
Relevant environmental terms/issues
Agriculture
Air pollution
Deforestation/habitat
destruction
Water
pollution
Related authors
Theodore Dreiser
Baynard Rush
Hall
Eli Lilly
Roger Pfingston
Ernie Pyle
Kate M. Rabb
Scott Russell
Sanders
James Alexander
Thom
Marguerite Young
