Olentangy River

The Olentangy River () is a tributary of the Scioto River in Ohio.

It was originally called keenhongsheconsepung, a Delaware word literally translated as "stone for your knife stream", based on the shale found along its shores. Early settlers to the region translated this into "Whetstone River". In 1833, the Ohio General Assembly passed legislation intending to restore the original Native American names to some Ohio waterways, but mistakenly gave Whetstone River the name "Olentangy"—Delaware for "river of the red face paint"—which had actually belonged to what is now known as Big Darby Creek.The Olentangy River rises in Crawford County approximately 2 mi (3.2 km) northeast of Galion, flowing through Galion and northwest towards Bucyrus, where it then turns south and flows through the communities of Delaware, Powell, Worthington, and the campus of Ohio State University, before joining with the Scioto River in downtown Columbus.

The Delaware State Park Reservoir, also known as Delaware Lake, was constructed along the Olentangy River in 1951. The reservoir is located 5 miles north of the city of Delaware, and was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for flood control purposes. On January 13, 2005, Delaware Dam was nearly overtopped. The water level came within less than 1 foot of requiring the main spill gates to be opened before it began dropping.

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