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:
“Before the birth of the New Woman the country was not an intellectual desert, as she is apt to suppose. There were teachers of the highest grade, and libraries, and countless circles in our towns and villages of scholarly, leisurely folk, who loved books, and music, and Nature, and lived much apart with them. The mad craze for money, which clutches at our souls to-day as la grippe does at our bodies, was hardly known then.”
—Rebecca Harding Davis (1831–1910)
“We approached the Indian Island through the narrow strait called “Cook.” He said, “I ‘xpect we take in some water there, river so high,—never see it so high at this season. Very rough water there, but short; swamp steamboat once. Don’t paddle till I tell you, then you paddle right along.” It was a very short rapid. When we were in the midst of it he shouted “paddle,” and we shot through without taking in a drop.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)