[4] A short distance before the river enters Lake Erie, near State Route 2, it passes through a deep gorge.

The Vermilion rest area along the northern (westbound) side of Route 2 features a short nature trail leading to an overview of the gorge.

"Thepy"(or "sepe"/"sipi") was a Native word for 'river' or 'creek'; and "Oulame" may translate directly as 'paint' -- this River seems to be referred to as "Paint Creek" by later 18th-century European inhabitants —- it is said that the local Native-Americans used the purplish-red clay from along this river, as a sort of paint on their bodies (by mixing it with bright red berry juices).

But the name "Vermillion" undoubtedly was an attribution by the first European explorers here, who apparently presumed that the red clay-and-berry mixture was the same as the substance (and highly valuable European commodity) 'vermillion' -- and although the native's body-paint really instead turned out to be made from worthless brownish-purple mud, but the name "vermillion" stuck anyway.

But an urban-myth circulating in the city of Vermilion in the early 1970s claims that the name "Vermillion" lost its second 'L' because it was more expensive to paint two L's on the water tower.