Middle Island

The Ohio River has always been a highway and a lifeline. For thousands of years its valley was ancestral homeland and hunting ground to the Shawnee, the Lenape, and other nations whose descendants continue elsewhere today, and its islands were seasonal fishing and gathering places. Later the river carried settlers, flatboats, and steamboats west, and towns like St Marys grew up along its banks.

Middle Island is among the biggest of the river's many islands, a long low landform of fertile soil laid down by the current over ages. Farmed for generations, much of it is now returning to woods and meadow under the care of the wildlife refuge, a mix of open ground and forest that makes it especially rich for birds and other wildlife.

The Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge protects a string of islands and shoreline scattered along many miles of the river through West Virginia and neighboring states. The islands are havens for wildlife because they are hard to reach and largely undeveloped, and together they help safeguard the river's water quality and its native fish and freshwater mussels, some of which are found almost nowhere else.

On Middle Island, watch the shallows and shoreline for great blue herons, wood ducks, kingfishers, and, overhead, bald eagles and ospreys that fish the river. Songbirds fill the bottomland woods in spring and fall migration, white-tailed deer move through the fields, and the river itself teems with catfish, bass, and other species that draw anglers to its banks.

Because you can drive or walk across the bridge, Middle Island is one of the easiest ways to spend time on the Ohio itself rather than just looking at it from shore. Lanes and trails let you loop through the island's mix of open ground and woods, and the shoreline offers long views up and down the river and quiet spots to sit and watch the water.

Fishing is a big draw, both from the banks and, for those with boats, along the island's channels. The refuge asks visitors to tread lightly, stay to trails and lanes, and leave the island as they found it, which is part of why the wildlife here stays so abundant and the place stays so quiet.

Spring brings migrating warblers and waterfowl, high green water, and the fresh leaf of the bottomland woods. Summer is warm, humid, and lush, good for a lazy walk or an evening of fishing, though the bugs can be thick in the low ground near the water.

Fall is the finest season here, with cooler air, turning leaves reflected in the river, and eagles and waterfowl on the move. Winter strips the woods bare and opens up long views across the water, and bald eagles are often easiest to spot against the leafless trees along the shore.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.