A TALE OF TWO STREAMS
At McKnight Park, just north of Griggs Dam, two tributaries flow in the Scioto. The north stream feeds into a marked inlet of the reservoir, has continuous flow, but no name. We’ll call it “inlet stream” in the following. The southern stream, called Millikim, is in a beautiful limestone canyon, but it is often dry except after heavy rain, and thus it’s an intermittent stream. The observed flow patterns are surprising, because Millikim must have had significant flow in the past to carve the canyon. So, we followed both creeks upstream to see what they look link in today’s urban setting.
The north “inlet stream” flows out of Walden Ravine, a private condo area. It crosses Dublin Rd and then flows along the northern border of the historic Norwich Cemetery where it can be seen in a wooded ravine about 20ft below. It continues west through a Columbus 1980s neighborhood, crosses Dunlavin Rd and then Scioto Darby Executive Dr. It continues west under I270, and from the freeway it can be seen crossing the large new Amazon datacenter area. One can get another view of the stream where it crosses the railroad track before connecting to a retention pond at Darby Glen Park. The pond is fed by 3 large storm sewer pipes, and this seems to be the end of the stream as a surface water.
The southern, intermittent Millikim, runs thought the limestone canyon, crosses Dublin Rd and then flows along the south side of Norwich Cemetery through a nicely landscaped new section of the cemetery. Going west, Millikim is a ditch along Sciot Darby Creek Rd, first on the north side of the road, then on the south side and finally on the north again, but all along in an invasive phragmites infested ditch. It seems to end in a ditch along the east side of I270, along Woodson Dr, a private gravel road.
The big question is what made Millikim the bigger stream in the past carving the canyon?
We speculated that perhaps there had been an additional branch to Millikim, that is now obliterated by the large quarry to the south. To find out we examined historical aerial maps available as scanned files at FSWCD. In 1957, the extent of the quarry was like today, though perhaps it was less deep, but in 1938, it was only about half as wide to the west than today. The course of both streams is as today through the cemetery and then going west. Note that the “inlet stream” has nice natural meanders but is straightened through today’s residential area. As today, it seems that Millikim ran along Dublin Rd and crossed it the same as now. It crosses the rail line and the location of today’s I270 then goes further west. Of course, all that was farmland in 1938, but is nearly 100% developed with about 40% impervious surfaces now. But there does not seem to be another branch for Millikim, where the quarry is today, and the overall drainage area seems similar now and then, except that farm ditches were replaced by storm sewers for both streams.
Of course, the formation of Indian Village Canyon is on a geological time scale of 1000-10000s of years. One other curious question would be whether either or both streams had waterfalls under today’s Griggs Reservoir. Their location is near Griggs Dam, and the dam is 30ft high. Thus, there could have been waterfalls that are now underwater.