This illustrated 58-page graphic novel can be read by young and old. It is based on fact with very few fictional liberties taken. We are working to make this a book that is “cool” to kids, teens and adults, because the characters were brave and “cool” beyond belief and they are the men who opened up this secluded paradise to the world.

1752 Cresap & Nemacolin cut out Nemacolin’s Trail to open up lands in Ohio and westward.

1753 – Christopher Gist, young George Washington and the Half King travel the trail and deliver the French a message to disperse from the area the English were claiming.

1754 –Lt. Col. George Washington, Gist and 100 men are sent to widen Nemacolin’s Trail to 12 feet so heavy artillery can be transported to Fort Redstone.

1754 – Lt. Col. Paddles the Youghiogheny River from Somerfield to Ohiopyle. He gets out of the water before Ohiopyle Falls saying, The water becomes so rapid I am obliged to come ashore.” He later wrotet that “The Youghiogheny will never be navigable.”

Fort Necessity battle commences.

1755 – General Braddock is  killed during battle. Tom Fossit claims to have killed him because he shot his brother who would not fight in formation, but hid behind a tree like the Indians who were slaughtering them. Washington and men haul Braddock over mountains to Fort Necessity, burying him in the trail so no one would find him.

1804 – 92 year old Tom Fossit shows Wharton Township Road Supervisor. Abraham Stewart (and son, Andrew) where Braddock is buried. They move him to the side of the road as they were building the National Road.

1822 – Congressman Andrew Stewart built the Fayette Springs Hotel near the Braddock burial site.

1848 – Congressman Andrew Stewart was nominated for the Vice Presidency. He was voted in unanimously, but a flub cost him the seat. President Taylor offered him the position of Secretary of Treasury. He declined, saying, “I’m going to Ohiopyle.” He then bought up hundreds of acres in Ohiopyle, PA and developed Falls City (later to be named Ohiopyle).  He built grist mills, lumber mills, hotels and many homes for his workers.

1871 – Stewart built the Ohiopyle Hotel.

1872 – After decades of hard work, Stewart succeeded in bringing the B & O Railroad through Falls City. After that, he passed away. Fullfillinf his lifelong dream of turning Falls City into a tourist Mecca. A boom commenced!

1935 – Edgar Kaufmann, Sr. hired Frank Lloyd Wright to design Fallingwater.

1951 – Edgar Kaufmann, Sr. bought the Ferncliff Penninsula and the Ohiopyle Hotel and gave them to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

1958 – The WPC announced their intentions to preserve the Youghiogheny River Gorge, recommending a state park be prganized. It was!

1963 – Lance and Lee Martin took 300 paying customers down the Lower Yoghiogheny in rafts. This was the first commercially run river in the country and it became the most commercially run river in the world.

2008 – Today, the park attracts 2 million travelers each year. An annual falls race is held in the very spot George Washington was “obliged to come ashore.”.