Perry County, Indiana
On River Rd. (soon to be reopened) between Tell City and Cannelton was the location of "Fulton's Mine," said to be the first used in Indiana, and in 1811, to have furnished coal to the first steam boat on the Ohio River, the "New Orleans," which was owned by Robert Fulton and piloted by Nicholas Roosevelt. This area has great cliffs of massive sandstone, which belittle the narrow river valley below.
Across the river from Cannelton Is the quaint county seat town of Hawesville, Kentucky, and a few miles east along Highway 60 is "Tar Springs," where crude petroleum issues with the water which was thought to have curative properties.
Going north is Jeffrey's Cliffs, a massive sandstone monolith outcropping, home of Morgan's Cave where some of Gen. Morgan's men camped before the Raid into Indiana.
Three miles northeast of Cannelton is Lafayette Spring State Monument and Rock Island (dynamited away)in the Ohio river. On May 9, 1826, legend states the great General Lafayette was nearly drowned here and spent a miserable night under the towering cliff at the spring.
One half mile east of Lafayette spring is Cedar Cliff, where the massive sandstone rocks comprising the upper part of the Ohio River bluff have slid down on the wet shale underneath, creating a topsy-turvy vegetation and topographic situation. Great rocks stand at weird angles in the past mud flows.
The hill back of Cannelton is a mass of surface gravel of ancient age, deposited there when the present Ohio river flowed 300 feet above its present level.
Just east of the river village of Troy, 7 miles down the river from Cannelton, is Fulton Hill, a great stripped off face of rock nearly 1/4 Mile in length and 150 feet high, which shows a marvelous lateral gradation of sandstone, shales, coals and a limestone made as a beach deposit in which the intermingled both marine & land fossil forms.
West of Troy is Anderson River and the Lincoln Ferry site, now commemorated by a roadside park and further to the west is "Mound Hill," thought to be an Indian mound, though its situation is unique. (June 11, 1941 Cannelton Telephone)
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