River Mile: 355

Population: 18,252

U.S. Census Profile

Located at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio Rivers, the area around Portsmouth, Ohio was settled by humans as early as 100 BCE. These people, the Ohio Hopewell, built the Portsmouth Earthworks, a prominent complex of mounds, most of which is now covered by the modern town.

A Shawnee village was founded on the site in the mid-1700s, followed by people of European extraction in the 1790s after the American Revolution. Officially founded in 1803, the city of Portsmouth became an important point on the Underground Railroad in the years before the Civil War, despite state laws discouraging the settlement of Black people in the area. Industries tied to river traffic such as meat packing and shipping, and later steel and brick making and other manufacturing, led to Portsmouth becoming a major industrial town around the turn of the 20th Century. Population peaked in the early 1930s at around 40,000. Factory closures, labor outsourcing and movement to larger urban centers all contributed to an economic decline in the second half of the 20th century. Since then, the town has enjoyed reinvestment and redevelopment of industrial and downtown properties amid efforts to transform the economy.