Six years ago, you might have driven through downtown Hamilton, Ohio and seen exactly what people expected from a former paper-mill town: empty storefronts, a quiet riverfront, a "rust belt" reputation that nobody was in a rush to overturn.
On April 24, 2026, nearly 200 people packed into the Fitton Center for Creative Arts to talk about the opposite problem: a 99-mile river corridor that's growing so fast, the conversation has shifted from "how do we get people here" to "how do we manage the people who already showed up."
That's the story of the 19th Annual Great Miami Riverway Summit — and judging by the reviews, it landed. Attendees rated their overall experience an average of 8.5 out of 10, with nine in ten giving it a 7 or higher. Three-quarters left saying they were more likely to partner, promote, or get further involved in projects along the river. This year's theme, Reimagining, ran through every session — a whitewater park rising out of a "drowning machine," a paper mill turned into the largest indoor sports complex in the country, and a river system once written off as polluted now producing some of the best trophy bass fishing in Ohio. Here's what happened, session by session.
If you've ridden the Great Miami River Trail lately, you've probably noticed something new whizzing past: bikes that look like bicycles but move like motorcycles.
Matt Lindsay of the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission opened the Summit with a panel tackling this head-on, alongside bicycle attorney Steve Magas and Amy Dingle of Five Rivers MetroParks. The panel's contribution to the conversation was a new term worth knowing: "e-moto." It describes the growing wave of devices marketed and sold as e-bikes that actually blow past Ohio's legal limits — some hitting 40+ mph on motors four times more powerful than the law allows.
Why does the distinction matter? Because the fear voiced repeatedly on stage was that frustrated communities, trying to crack down on e-motos, could accidentally pass rules that punish legitimate cyclists too. The region's 12 trail-managing agencies are now working toward a unified approach this June, covering weight limits, posted speed limits, and a trail-wide education push — because, as one panelist put it, nobody wants the rules to change every time you cross a county line.
Every river town has the same ghosts: old banks, old mills, old storefronts that stopped meaning anything decades ago. What Hamilton did differently is the subject of one of the Summit's most popular sessions, "Reimagined Spaces: The Power of Adaptive Reuse," moderated by Cassandra Maslin of the City of Hamilton.
Three stories anchored the conversation:
The common denominator across all three: patient capital, deep city partnership, and buildings doing double duty as both businesses and community gathering spaces.
If you want proof that a river can heal, ask a biologist what's swimming in it.
Kelsea Downs of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources delivered one of the Summit's most quietly stunning sessions: a portrait of a river that, before the 1970s, supported almost nothing but pollution-tolerant fish — and today hosts 113 species across 25 families, including a smallmouth bass fishery ranked #1 in Ohio for producing trophy-sized fish (the current record sits at 24.3 inches). About 58% of the watershed now meets Clean Water Act standards, with another 20% partially meeting them — a dramatic reversal from the river's industrial-pollution era.
Downs also tackled a myth head-on: contrary to what longtime residents sometimes assume, fish from most stretches of the Great Miami River are safe to eat, one to two meals a month. The bigger picture, as she framed it, is bigger than fishing: Ohio's anglers generate $5.5 billion in economic impact and support 34,000 jobs statewide — and a healthy fish population is one of the clearest signals of a healthy river.
Pam Allen of Ohio Women on the Fly followed with a different kind of growth story: a grassroots Instagram community, started in 2019 by two friends, that has grown into a 400-member statewide nonprofit removing the biggest barriers to fly fishing — gear cost and a sense of not belonging — through free clinics, fly-tying nights, and gear-lending programs. Southwest Ohio, including the Great Miami, is next on the group's expansion list.
Sarah Wickham, Ohio's State Tourism Director, brought the numbers that explain why every city at this Summit is racing to invest in its riverfront.
In 2024, outdoor recreation generated $20 billion for Ohio's economy and supported more than 150,000 jobs. Statewide tourism overall brought in 242 million visits, $57 billion in spending, and $4.7 billion in state and local tax revenue — savings Wickham estimated at roughly $1,000 per Ohio household, every year.
Her core argument: rivers have stopped being scenery and started being infrastructure. Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, and Athens were all cited as examples of riverfronts reimagined as genuine gathering places, and Wickham was blunt about what makes all of it possible here: the Miami Conservancy District's century-old flood protection system, funded by the region itself after the catastrophic flood of 1913, rather than by Washington or Columbus. Her closing challenge to local leaders: keep connecting experiences, keep telling the economic story, and turn more residents into ambassadors — since one in four visitors to Ohio who come to see friends or family never actually leave the couch.
Accessibility was the throughline of one of the Summit's most moving sessions, anchored by a video that left half the room a little misty-eyed.
Kathryn Rawlison of Travel Butler County detailed how the county became the first Wheel the World Destination Verified location in Ohio, through a partnership with the leading global platform for accessible travel. More than 70 local assessments — covering hotels, parks, and attractions — produced over 8,000 data points now published on a dedicated Butler County destination profile, addressing a real gap: the accessible travel market represents 13 million U.S. travelers and $58 billion in annual spending, yet planning an accessible trip typically takes three times longer due to unreliable information. Local businesses have already acted on the feedback — the Fitton Center added stair lighting, and Pyramid Hill updated its signage and contrast markings.
Tom Warchol of Board Safe Docks and HIVE PaddleSports followed with the engineering side: how to build kayak launches that meet ADA standards and go beyond them, with features like overhead grab bars and kayak chutes. His most striking example wasn't even about accessibility — it was resilience. A dock his company installed on Georgia's Chattahoochee River survived Hurricane Helene's 24-foot water rise with minimal damage, because it was engineered for the worst case from day one.
Ask any business owner in downtown Hamilton how they survived COVID, and you'll likely hear some version of the same story.
Sarah Dankhoff (Wildfire Hygge Goods), Logan (River's Edge Amphitheater), Ann Marie (The Casual Pint), and Jim Goodman (Municipal Brew Works) traced their first collaborations back to the early pandemic, when downtown business owners started checking in on each other out of pure necessity. That instinct formalized into HAHA — the Hamilton Amusement and Hospitality Association — a group that still meets regularly today.
Their advice for anyone starting something new in their own town: get clear on your vision, put it on paper, give before you ask for anything back, and don't fixate on one rigid definition of success. As Goodman put it, if an event brings exposure to a good cause or even a small charitable donation, that's already a win — not a failure.
Midday, the Summit paused for a plenary session with two pieces of news worth knowing if you care about where the Riverway is headed next.
MaryLynn Lodor, General Manager of the Miami Conservancy District, set the stage by framing the Great Miami Riverway as a single, unified 99-mile system rather than a string of individual towns — one that's proven what regional collaboration can do over the last decade, but that risks plateauing without a clearer shared identity. That's the thinking behind a new Brand Refresh for the Great Miami Riverway, presented by Cathy Fromet of Guide Studio, a branding and wayfinding strategist who's worked with cities and public spaces across the country. The goal: a more consistent, recognizable identity that helps the Riverway compete for funding, visitors, and attention — built on the idea that the brand only works if every community along the corridor uses it.
The session also included one of the Summit's warmest moments: the announcement of the 2026 Corridor Champion of the Year. This year's honor went to Jeff Raible of the Sidney Visitors Bureau, recognized for decades of work turning pass-through visitors into people who stay, explore, and return — and for his leadership chairing the Riverway Subcommittee as he heads into retirement.
The Summit closed with its most electric session: the first-ever Riverway Rapid Share, a pecha-kucha-style lightning round — 20 slides, 20 seconds each, whether the speaker was ready or not. Five communities used the format to drop some of the day's biggest news:
When asked whether these communities are competing or collaborating, the answer from the stage was unanimous: while each city still funds and runs its own projects, the bigger game — competing for visitors, investment, and attention on a national stage — is one this whole corridor plans to win together.
It's no surprise this was the session attendees talked about most afterward. "Getting to know other members of the Riverway through the Rapid Share" and "interesting to see what's happening up and down the river" were two of the most common notes from this year's post-Summit survey — proof that the new format struck a nerve in exactly the way organizers hoped.
Not every highlight of the Summit happened on stage. Some of the day's most-loved moments were the small, hands-on touches that turned a conference into something closer to a celebration.
The live t-shirt printing station, run by Unsung Salvage Design, was a runaway hit — attendees called this year's design "great," and more than one person admitted to buying a second shirt for someone back home. The returning ORSANCO Life Below the Water Line aquarium exhibit pulled a steady crowd all day, with attendees and casual visitors alike crowding around to see the aquatic species that call the Great Miami home. And in one of the day's quieter wins, a hands-on fly-fishing session sent at least one first-timer home not just inspired, but actually able to use a rod he'd inherited and never picked up.
Add in river rocks scattered across the tables for fidgeting hands during sessions, free Riverway swag, and a packed exhibitor hall, and it's easy to see why one attendee summed up the day simply: "This was my favorite Summit so far."
Watch the 2026 Riverway Summit: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_iV__ZplU0HrLBJZgdv2ddaQDOC6_bq-
Thank you to everyone who joined us in Hamilton for the 19th Annual Riverway Summit. The river's next chapter is already being written — see you next year.