Davis Island is a small island located on the Ohio River in Stowe Township, just upstream of Neville Island near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
The island was home to the Davis Island Lock and Dam from 1878 to 1922, constructed by William Emery Merrill.The Davis Island Lock and Dam was the first dam that was constructed on the Ohio River. It officially opened on October 7, 1885 with a large dedication ceremony. The Davis Island Dam was the largest Chanoine dam built in the 19th century, and one of the first concrete structures built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Davis Island Dam was the first of 51 Chanoine type dams that were built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1878 and 1929. The dam was dismantled in 1922 when it was replaced by the Emsworth Locks and Dam less than a mile downstream of the original site.
It is now owned by the West View Water Authority and is used primarily to pump water from the Ohio River, which then goes on to be purified and is used by the surrounding communities for drinking.
Famous quotes containing the words davis and/or island:
“Night’s brittle song, silver-thin
Shatters into a billion fragments
Of quiet shadows
At the blaring jazz
Of a morning sun.”
—Frank Marshall Davis (b. 1905)
“We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes eastward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping to the eastern side of the lake. This way or that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tampered with it; but I knew that the Indians were very liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan first.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)