The Frontier Boat Launch opened in spring 2011 in southeast Ohio as a six-acre public site intended to serve boaters, support the local economy, and attract more visitors along the Ohio River Scenic Byway. Ohio ranked in the nation’s top ten for boating, with 400,000 registered boaters, and recreational boating brought in $3.2 billion per year statewide. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Watercraft awarded $2.2 million to the project, part of Ohio’s $39 million investment between 1997 and 2013 to improve boater access, while the USDA Forest Service-Wayne National Forest oversaw the project and also contributed funding. In 2012, the Wayne National Forest staff received national recognition because the Frontier Boat Launch was one of the few fully accessible boat launch facilities along this section of the Ohio River. The late Sam Kidd, former president of the Local Economic Development Association, strongly supported the project and helped rally local backing, and his wife Vesta represented the association at the opening ceremony. At the ribbon cutting, local Veterans of Foreign Wars posts 6387 and 5108 and Cub Scout Pack 250 raised the flag, and contractor Jerry Welch, president of the D.J. Group, Inc. of Beverly, Ohio, donated and installed the flagpole.