Youghiogeny River
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The Youghiogeny River is a river in the eastern United States of America.
It rises in Preston County, West Virginia, flows through western Maryland, and then into Pennsylvania, joining the Monongahela River at McKeesport.
A 21-mile segment of the upper Youghiogheny in Maryland is designated a Wild and Scenic River. Whitewater stretches in that section, and in two Pennsylvania segments near Ohiopyle, are popular with rafters, canoers, and kayakers.
The river flows into the Youghiogeny River Lake, which crosses the Mason-Dixon line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. The lake was formed by the Youghiogeny River Dam build by the US Army Corps of Engineers. About a mile downriver from the dam, at Confluence, Pennsylvania, the Casselman River joins the Youghiogheny. The river then enters Ohiopyle State Park, where further whitewater stretches and Ohiophyle Falls follow. Industry springs up along the river at Connellsville, once a major coke producing town.
The river corridor has long been a transportation route. In 1754, a young George Washington led an army along the river, hoping to establish a route to Pittsburgh to support an English presence there, but the Ohiopyle Falls made the river route impractical. Later, railroads lined both banks from Confluence to the river's end in McKeesport. One of the railroads is still an active line, and the route of Amtrak's Capitol Limited. The other has been abandoned, and most of its length became a hiking and biking trail in the 1980s and 1990s.