Biohazard Cleanup Near Zahn's Corner Waverly, OH

Waverly is a village in Pike County, Ohio, and the county seat, located about 14 miles south of Chillicothe along the Scioto River.

Waverly was platted around 1829 by M. Downing as the Ohio and Erie Canal was being built along the west bank of the Scioto River; it was originally called Uniontown, and Francis Cleveland suggested the name Waverly because he admired Sir Walter Scott's Waverley novels.

The Ohio and Erie Canal reached Waverly in the early 1830s, and local businessman James Emmitt owned the first canalboat to pass through it, named the Governor Worthington; Emmitt's Emmitt House tavern and hotel stood from 1861 until it burned down in January 2014.

After a long political fight with Piketon, Waverly won the Pike County seat in 1861, with supporters sealing the deal by donating a new courthouse, which still stands on Second Street.

The Shawnee leader Tecumseh was born very close to Waverly, around 1768, and the surrounding area is rich in much older Adena and Hopewell burial mounds.

Waverly's county boomed in 1953 when the federal government built the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant uranium enrichment facility in Pike County, a nearly 4,000-acre plant that employed more than 2,000 workers at its height.

Confederate raiders under John Hunt Morgan passed through Waverly during Morgan's Raid in 1863.

Waverly had 4,165 residents at the 2020 census, and it is an older community: the 2010 census counted 2,035 households and a median age of 48 years.

Waverly is served by the Garnet A. Wilson Public Library of Pike County, and its students attend Waverly High School in the Waverly City School District.

Waverly is the hometown of Pure Prairie League, the pioneering country-rock band known for the song 'Amie.'