Explains in detail the people who came to the area, how they got there, and what happened to them.
~Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal
Brilliantly conceived and well executed.
~American Historical Review
A significant contribution to regional and social history.... Highly recommended.
~Choice
Not only has Bigham provided valuable insights into the dynamics of urbanization on the lower Ohio, he also has helped frame important questions for future research of small cities and towns across the country. This is a truly ground-breaking book.
~Filson Club History Quarterly
Bigham has provided us with a very detailed model of a regional study.... Will send local historians, especially those in small towns, scurrying to... find sources that will document their own communities as Bigham has documented these along the Lower Ohio.
~H-Net Reviews
The first history of community building on the least-known section of the Ohio River—the 300-plus miles below the Falls of Louisville.
~Indiana History Bulletin
Bigham makes his greatest contribution to our understanding of the lower Ohio River valley when he discusses the river's effect on the social and cultural relationships of the people who lived along it.
~Indiana Magazine of History
Bigham never loses sight of his subject's remoteness from the main thoroughfares of America, referring often and wisely to outside, external, and exogenous trends that shaped this increasingly marginal region.
~Journal of Illinois History
Provides wonderful insight into the development of towns, cities, and counties along the lower Ohio, as well as describing the people who occupied these historic entities.
~Lynwood Montell, Western Kentucky University
A well-crafted comparative history of community building on the lower 350 miles of the Ohio River.
~Public Historian
Gives us perspective on a unique regional river culture and economy, as if somehow Bigham could sift layers of top soil deposits and come up with explanations and residue from the past that inform the present.
~Southern Seen
Those wishing to find a sampling of the published information available on the beginnings of a truly comprehensive roster of towns and villages on the lower Ohio from the first days of Kentucky's statehood to the end of World War I may wish to begin with this book.
~The Journal of American History
