Thanks to gifted muralists, hulking floodwalls in 13 towns and cities on
both sides of the Ohio River have been transformed into open-air art museums,
featuring more than 7,000 feet of breathtaking paintings depicting local
history—including the 1913 flood
Vacation idea: spend a week or
more bicycling or driving along both sides of the Ohio River from Wellsville,
Ohio, to Cairo, Illinois, viewing massive concrete floodwalls in 13 cities in five
states. Over the past two decades, hulking walls of concrete 14 to 30 feet high
have been transformed from gray faceless monoliths into artists’ canvases,
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| A thousand feet of concrete floodwalls are an outdoor art museum as the Wall-to-Wall murals in Paducah, Kentucky. Bronze markers at the base of each panel describes what is portrayed; lights above panels illuminate the murals at night. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2010. |
opening vivid windows into a scene beyond or back in time, thanks to the
talents of cadres of artists. The vibrant living colors impel you to imagine
yourself in the midst of a past event, some scenes so vividly three-dimensional
you feel you could literally walk into them.
Immortalized in floodwall
paintings are singing cowboy Roy Rogers rearing up on his trusty horse Trigger
(Rogers in his boyhood attended school in Portsmouth, Ohio), trailblazer Daniel
Boone (who operated a trading post in Point Pleasant, West Virginia), and
actress and jazz singer Rosemary Clooney (who grew up in Maysville, Kentucky). Seeing
their images larger than life, one marvels that so many colorful, well-known
figures in American history called this or that Ohio River town home for at
least a part of their lives.
Since floods are also a major
part of Ohio River history and life (the floodwalls
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| Both the 1913 and 1937 floods are portrayed in this panel at Paducah, along with the earlier 1884 flood. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2010. |
themselves were built for mitigation
after the great Ohio River flood of 1937), nearly half (six) of the murals include depictions
of floods, including of 1913.
If your timing is right, you may
be lucky enough to see drop cloths, scaffolding, and artists at work: Each year
more panels appear, while others need to be touched up due to winter’s
weathering. Moreover, seeing how effective the murals have been in drawing
tourism, other cities are also considering murals for their own floodwalls. In 2008,
2009, and 2010, I made four pilgrimages up and down the Ohio River to
photograph all that existed then—but would welcome hearing updates from readers,
city leaders, or the muralists themselves.
“Socio-political activism”
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| Robert Dafford painting murals at Point Pleasant, WV. This single artist and his associates have painted three-quarters of the Ohio River floodwall murals. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2010. |
Although a quarter of the murals
have been painted by half a dozen local artists, three-quarters are the monumental
handiwork of one man: Louisiana-based muralist Robert Dafford and his various
associates. For Dafford, painting the murals has, in his words, “become
socio-political activism.” Ohio River towns are realizing the value of public
art not only to attract tourism, but also to preserve and retell local history
for their residents. So they are securing grants to make floodwall murals a
centerpiece of downtown revitalization.
The murals portray not only history,
but also restore vistas of the Ohio River that the floodwalls block. “I’ve
tried to make the feeling of ‘wallness’ go away,” explained Dafford, who began
painting the 2,200 feet of floodwalls in Portsmouth, Ohio, 22 years ago. “When
I first visited Portsmouth in 1992, the massive blank gray concrete floodwall
made downtown feel hemmed in, almost as if it were in prison,” he recalled. So
using clever perspective techniques to create the illusion of great depth,
Dafford painted some panels to look like Greek columns through which people now
see river scenes and hills beyond. So powerful is the three-dimensional depth
of Dafford’s illusionist techniques that the walls utterly seem to disappear:
with some panels, in fact,
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| No, this is not a bridge but an optical illusion created by the skill of Robert Dafford in the mural panel at Court and Front streets in Portsmouth, Ohio. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2010 |
a viewer must approach to within a few feet before
the 3-D effect flattens out. “Today if you look down Court Street at the
floodwall from a block away, it feels as though the wall is not even there.”
Below is a quick guide to the
floodwall murals in 13 Ohio River towns in five states (Ohio, West Virginia,
Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois) from east to west, along with a couple of
suggested side trips to two additional towns in Ohio and one in Missouri. Much
of the trip along the northern side of the Ohio River follows the Ohio River Scenic Byway,
which runs 967 miles through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Much of it allows you
to keep the magnificent river in view. Driving
along the southern side is less straightforward,
but detours are worth it as half the murals are in West Virginia and several
Kentucky towns. Although Cape Girardeau, Missouri, is a bit north of where the
Ohio River empties into the Mississippi, if you’ve made it all the way to
Cairo, Illinois, the 1,000-foot-long floodwall murals of that Missouri city are
eminently worth the detour.
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| Visiting all the Ohio River floodwall murals (plus adding Cape Girardeau) is a meandering trip of about 1,000 miles. Base outline map of the Ohio River basin: Wikipedia, plus my approximate plots of the towns and cities with floodwall murals. (Not shown: Steubenville is near Wellsville and Aberdeen is across the Ohio River from Maysville.) |
Wellsville, Ohio. The
270 feet of Wellsville floodwall murals seem to be in a surprising place: not
directly paralleling the Ohio River, but crossing Main Street while
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| One section of the Wellsville, Ohio, floodwall murals by Gina Hampson are graced with a small park. Hampson has painted the concrete floodwall to look like bricks. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2009 |
entering
Wellsville from Route 7. Only the hulking shape of the walls suggest they are
floodwalls, because local muralist Gina Hampson meticulously painted the
concrete surface to look like red bricks. A project of the Wellsville Revitalization
Committee from 2005 through 2012, Hampson’s panels depict local Wellsville
schools, shops, and other landmarks, as well as historical events—such as when
President Abraham Lincoln visited Wellsville by train on his way from
Springfield, Illinois, to his second inauguration in Washington, D.C., in 1865,
just a month before his assassination. The Wellsville floodwall murals also portray
people important to local history—one depicting the Wellsville Revitalization
Committee members picnicking (and where the artist herself is shown painting
their names in the lower right corner).
Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Historically, flooding in Point
Pleasant has involved the Kanawha River as much as the Ohio River, so the
floodwalls flank both rivers. “Instead of many individual pictures covering
many aspects of their history, we decided to
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| Dafford's murals at Point Pleasant, WV are single scenes hundreds of feet long. Loudspeakers atop the panels allow dramatic narration and sounds of battle for tours of school groups. At the far left is an amphitheater. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2010 |
focus on a few and make them
extravaganzas, making each stretch of 100 to 250 feet a single monumental scene
depicting a battle or other event important to the city's history,” Dafford
explained.
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| Detail of a battle scene at Point Pleasant, painted by Dafford. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2010 |
One scene depicts 19-year-old
George Washington surveying in the wilderness and arriving at “this Pleasant
Point” to meet with Benjamin Franklin and some land speculators who had formed
the Great Ohio Company, intending to form a colony called Vandalia, which would
have encompassed most of what today is West Virginia and Kentucky. (Before
Dafford’s mural, who knew that on the eve of the American Revolution there were
plans afoot for a fourteenth colony, with Point Pleasant as its capital?) It
also depicts Lord Dunmore’s War fought in 1774; one 160-foot section of it, portraying the Battle of Point Pleasant, details more than 2,000 individual
figures locked in mortal combat. The vast mural surrounds a riverfront
amphitheater, which is wired with speakers to recreate the sounds of shooting
guns and war cries in a multimedia presentation for school field trips. The
other epic multi-panel mural portrays a life-sized Shawnee village, detailing
the building of summer shelters, the tanning of animal skins, the grinding of
corn, and other activities of vanished native daily life.
Catlettsburg, Kentucky.
More gems from Dafford’s team, including collaborations
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| The work of Robert Dafford, Benny Graeff, and Herb Roe appears in Catlettsburg, Kentucky. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2009 |
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| Catlettsburg panel shows 1937 flood; post at left shows heights of 1937 and 1913 floods plus two others. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2009 |
with his main
associates of the 1990s, Benny Graeff and Herb Roe, adorn the floodwalls in
Catlettsburg. Notable are the image of the major 1937 Ohio River flood that
prompted many cities to start to build floodwalls in the first place. Also
clever is the way a protruding floodwall pumping station building is
incorporated into the long panel showing the unloading of a barge in 1910.
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| Some of the murals at Ashkand, Kentucky. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2009 |
Ashland, Kentucky. Inspired by the murals at Catlettsburg, Ashland
artist Denise Spaulding and several other local talents painted a short
sequence of murals depicting Ashland in World War II. Not all the murals are in
one place: several about quilts and local history are scattered about the
floodwall that forms the border of a nearby parking lot. A September 15, 2013 article in the Daily Independent announces two new panels are now being
painted, depicting the region’s black heritage.
Ironton, Ohio. A grass-roots project of local Ohio artists,
students, and hometown volunteers, the Ironton floodwall, nearly 500 feet long,
was the first to have murals painted facing the Ohio River itself rather than
facing the town, so they are visible only
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| The 500 feet of murals on the floodwall at Ironton, Ohio, include this depiction of a flood (without identifying whether it is from 1913 or 1937). Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2008 |
to riverside picnickers and passing
riverboats rather than from the road. Supervising the work from 1990 to 2004
was Gary Tillis, then Art Coordinator of Ohio University Southern in Ironton
(now retired), who involved some of the university's art students painting backgrounds.
The locomotive for the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton railroad, the sternwheel
paddleboat The Ironton, and the
Waterloo Wonders basketball team were the handiwork of local Ironton billboard
artist Tom Swick. Tillis himself picked up a brush in 2002, along with his
assistant Patty Shively, when the Purple Heart Society contracted them to paint
a panel memorializing Lawrence County veterans who died in conflict. When I was
last there in 2010, the murals were fading and did not seem to be maintained,
so viewers who want to see them should do so sooner rather than later.
Portsmouth, Ohio. Portsmouth
was the city that pioneered floodwall murals as a tool for downtown
revitalization. Feeling that it would be best to have all the murals in the
style of one artist, the city contracted with Robert Dafford Murals in May
1993. Dafford,
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| No single long shot can do justice to nearly half a mile of murals at Portsmouth, Ohio. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2008 |
with young local Portsmouth art student Herb Roe and other
helpers, spent the next 10 summers transforming the entire floodwall into
colorful views of Portsmouth past and present. Today, the theme of “2,000 Years
of History, 2,000 Feet of Art” has made Portsmouth a major go-to destination—so
much so that the headquarters of the tourism bureau for all of Scioto County
relocated to Front Street, 30 feet directly across from the murals (and on the
same side of the street where the murals’ descriptive markers are). Today, any
time day or night, visitors may be seen strolling along the floodwalls and
gazing at the panels, actually speaking in hushed voices as if in an art
museum.
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| The flooding of Alexandria at an unspecified year is one of two Portsmouth panels on floods. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2010 |
Two illusions about the panels are especially arresting. The
first is their remarkable three-dimensional depth, as if one is seeing straight
through the wall. “I can’t just take a picture and transfer it to the wall,”
Dafford explained. “The walls are so high, and tilted away from the viewer,
that I have to cheat the rules of perspective like crazy to make a scene work
for where the viewer is most likely to be standing.” Moreover, the historical
scenes are in fresh colors of today, which create a sensation of watching
events from a century ago happening right now. “I want to make historical
scenes look real,” Dafford added. “I
spend a long time in a place to study the local light, the plants, the animals,
the clouds—which are different wherever you go—so I can portray them exactly
right.”
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| The 1913 and 1937 floods are also depicted at Portsmouth. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2010 |
Exactly right, indeed. Check out the contemporary summertime
scene of pedestrians and a cyclist, located at the gate of the floodwall where
the base of Court Street intersects with the eastern edge of Front Street. So
right are the colors and so compelling the perspective that you'd swear you are
looking between stone columns of a bridge at the Ohio River, beholding the
tree-covered hills beyond.
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| Mural panel of Portsmouth motorcycle club in 1913 (!) is a point of pilgrimage. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2010 |
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| The river side of the Portsmouth floodwall features local stars. Photo credit: Trudy E. Bell, 2010 |
Make sure also to walk through the
floodwall gate to the river side of the wall to behold the impressive line of
white stars signed by notable Americans having some connection to Portsmouth
(such as lyric soprano Kathleen Battle). And also take time to see the murals
on isolated stretches of floodwalls such as those flanking Second Street
entering downtown, with its tribute to Portsmouth Labor Union painted primarily
by Brett Chigoy.
Maysville, Kentucky. Beginning in 1998, Dafford painted the
floodwall murals in Maysville, Kentucky, including two panels on the river side
of the wall dedicated to
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| Main part of the Maysville, Kentucky, floodwall murals. But be sure also to look for others on the river side of the walls, as well as also down several neighboring streets. Photo credit: Trudy E. Bell, 2008 |
local-girl-makes-good movie star Rosemary Clooney.
Also make sure to walk through the town and note where scenes are strategically
placed at the ends of several perpendicular streets to render the wall itself
invisible by opening a painted vista of the river itself or a historical event.
Covington, Kentucky. As
much an attraction for Greater Cincinnati as for Covington, the 18 murals on
the 1,000-foot floodwall face the river itself and are just a 15-minute
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| The floodwall murals in Covington, Kentucky, face Cincinnati across the Ohio River. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2009 |
walk across the blue Roebling Bridge from Bengals Stadium. “Jason Brake was the main
artist and foreman in Covington,” Dafford explained. Note especially the
powerful three-dimensional illusion of the scene of fireworks over Cincinnati
in 2008, including of a child viewing them at the lower left between painted
stone columns. The
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| The Covington murals include a panel of the 1937 flood. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2009 |
Covington murals inspired community development, encouraging
several cafes to open at Madison Landing at the far western edge, bringing a
huge increase of walking traffic to a formerly unvisited riverfront.
Jeffersonville, Indiana. Across the Second Street Bridge from
Louisville, Kentucky (a great eating city to visit any time!) is the town of Jeffersonville, Indiana, which was dramatically saved
from the 1913 flood by the quick willing labor of nearly 1,000 young Indiana
Reformatory prisoners in shoring up a levee and a railroad fill—and whom the
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| The trick at Jeffersonville is to avoid lunch or dinner time, when parked cars block a good view of the floodwall murals. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2010 |
city of Jeffersonville then thanked with a grand banquet (see “The Prisoners’ Feast”). On a short stretch of floodwall lining a parking lot are a dozen
panels depicting historical aspects of Jeffersonville, including some by
Dafford beginning in 2005. In 2012, two more murals were added by Molly Gruninger.
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| Paducah Wall to Wall murals with artist Herb Roe on scaffold. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2010 |
Paducah, Kentucky. Around
1995, the city of Paducah in western Kentucky contracted Dafford to begin its
own 1,000-foot-long “Wall to Wall” floodwall mural project with some 60 scenes—second
in length only to Portsmouth’s. Originally designed and painted by Dafford with
the help of Herb Roe, since about 2005 Roe has largely continued the work independently.
In Paducah, the sensation of being in an outdoor art museum is particularly
strong, because descriptions of each painted scene are cast in bronze at the
base of each panel. The murals document such surprises as Paducah’s having a
significant role since 1952 in developing nuclear power—who knew? As in
Portsmouth, Paducah’s murals are at the heart of the redevelopment of Paducah’s
riverfront downtown, now vibrant with art boutiques, shops, and restaurants.
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| A nearby stretch of floodwall in Paducah painted with river scenery by local artists. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2010 |
Be
sure to walk through the opening in the wall to the river side of it to see additional
paintings facing the Ohio River. Local artists have also painted river scenes (as
opposed to historical scenes) on hundreds of feet more of the floodwall along
the parking lots of some office buildings west of downtown.
Cannelton, Indiana. Cannelton
has a modest floodwall mural depicting local history.
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| Floodwall mural at Cannelton, Indiana. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2009 |
A description and map are on Waymarking.
Tell City, Indiana. Nine
miles west of Cannelton is Tell City, home to another set of modest floodwall
murals. Although tucked out of the way, Tell City’s murals includes a
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| Tell City's murals, painted by Emilie Young of Hawesville, includes a panel that portrays flooding. Note artist's scaffold. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2009 |
panel that depicts either the 1913 or 1937 floods, or both. The only apparent online
reference is a Facebook page, which has a few photos showing work on the murals since 2007.
Cairo, Illinois. Beginning summer 2012, brand new murals began
appearing on the levee floodwalls in the city that advertises itself “at the
confluence of America” where
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| The floodwall murals in Cairo, Illinois, is a project involving members of the community, including these school children, painting in summer 2013. Credit: Cairo River Wall Murals Facebook page |
the Ohio River meets the Mississippi. Called the
Cairo River Wall Murals, they have a Facebook page with a lot of photographs of artist Chris Helton and others as well as young
students priming and painting as well. As these murals were created after I was
last in the vicinity, it looks as though there will be another trip to Cairo
for me in the future to view and photograph the panels myself!
SIDEBAR
Extra-Mural Activities
Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Although not on the Ohio River, if you’ve
made it as far as Cairo, Illinois, you may as well jaunt another 35 miles up
the Mississippi River to
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| The Cape Girardeau, Missouri, floodwalls are unusually tall (author is shown for scale). This is only half the murals. Photo: Roxana Bell, 2009 |
behold the Missouri Wall of Fame—the westernmost truly
impressive set of floodwall murals, 24 panels totaling 1,500 feet long. Much of
it was painted by Chicago muralist Thomas Melvin. A video on Vimeo explains a bit about the origins and gives a sense of
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| The Mississippi River side of the Cape Girardeau floodwall also features murals. Note the enormous floodwall door. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2009 |
its monumental scale.
There are also murals on the river side of the Cape Girardeau floodwall by Leon Heise and
Gary West.
Near the beginning of your trip in
the east, after leaving Wellsville, be sure to stop at, Steubenville, Ohio which is known for 25 murals on the sides of its buildings
throughout the town—indeed, they inspired Portsmouth for the floodwall murals.
Many of Steubenville’s murals are by noted Washington-state muralist Eric Grohe in the 1990s. A walking map appears here.
And when leaving Maysville,
Kentucky, keep alert as you drive north across the Ohio River on the Simon
Kenton Bridge into Aberdeen, Ohio.
Directly ahead, painted on a
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| Highway wall on the Ohio side of the Simon Kenton Bridge in Aberdeen, Ohio, was painted by junior high and high school students. Photo: Trudy E. Bell, 2010 |
concrete highway wall, are four panels of a mural
depicting the bridge and the Ohio River in fall colors. No, it’s not a
floodwall but a concrete road cut. The creditable paintings there are by the
students in grades 7 through 12 of the Ripley-Union-Lewis-Huntington School
District, completed in 2008, attesting to the power of inspiration of public
art on concrete canvases.
All of my images plus the text ©2014 Trudy E. Bell
NOTE: Between 2008 and 2010, I photographed all the Ohio River floodwall murals that existed then plus Cape Girardeau, and amassed a library of perhaps 1,000 images. If any editor wishes to see other images in publication-quality high resolution, e-mail me.
NOTE: Between 2008 and 2010, I photographed all the Ohio River floodwall murals that existed then plus Cape Girardeau, and amassed a library of perhaps 1,000 images. If any editor wishes to see other images in publication-quality high resolution, e-mail me.
Next time: Benchmarking ‘extreme’
Selected references
This
installment is a comprehensive update of two 2010 feature articles I wrote
about floodwall murals: “Concrete Canvases” in the April issue of Ohio magazine, and “Ohio River floodwall murals bring downtowns,history to life” in the Sunday Travel section of the October 17 issue of
The Plain Dealer. For the journal Ohio Valley History, I am now
researching in greater depth the role this public art on floodwalls may have
played in revitalizing Ohio River towns—thus, I would greatly welcome hearing
feedback from civic leaders, shop keepers, and others.
Additional
information about the National Scenic Byways Program is here
with a list here.
Maps and information about the Ohio River cenic Byway is here.
More
history of the Wellsville floodwall murals is at “Floodwall mural project ready for dedication” and “Wellsville floodwall mural efforts going gangbusters”. A handy map with more images of the walls appears at Waymarking.
More
about the Point Pleasant floodwall murals is here. Robert Dafford’s own website
captures several panels at Point Pleasant and other floodwalls. See also the
front page story of the June 23, 2010 issue of the Point Pleasant Register (scroll down).
A
map to the Catlettsburg floodwalls appears here. Plans for extending the murals are announced here.
The
website for the city of Portsmouth
has many images of mural panels and some history about the project. Another
image is on Scioto County’s website. Another gallery of images appears at the Portsmouth–Scioto County VisitorsBureau
as well as on Dafford’s website.
The
Roebling Murals in Covington are shown on this blog, on Dafford’s own site, and in great detail on the site of Urban Ohio. A handy map appears on Waymarking.
Jeffersonville
has no official website with its murals, but one panel Dafford painted appears
on his page. Others are highlighted in this 1:19-minute YouTube video by Lincoln Crum.
Many of the
original panels in Paducah by Dafford appear at this Paducah site, on this detailed page on Dafford’s site, and on Herb Roe’s Pinterest site. A commemorative book is also available. All the murals on the entire 1,000-foot floodwall and their brass markers are
filmed in this 13:19-minute YouTube video; murals start at minute 1:16.
There appears
to be no official website for the Tell City mural project aside from the
Facebook page. A detailed description of each panel plus a map appears on Waymarking,
There
appears to be no official website for the Cairo Wall Mural Project aside from
the Facebook page. As far as I can determine from the blog posts of the Cairo
Association of Teachers, Cairo sixth-graders in 2010 originated the idea to beautify Cairo and make its Ohio River levee floodwall murals as much of an
attraction as those in Paducah and Cape Girardeau. After securing permission
from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, work began putting designs on the walls
in June 2013.
A little about the floodwalls at Cape Girardeau appears on page 17 of the city's official visitors guide.
