Davis Island: Where the Ohio River Was Tamed

Just below this bridge, between eighteen seventy-eight and eighteen eighty-five, the United States Army Corps of Engineers built the first lock and dam ever constructed on the Ohio River. At the time it was the largest wicket dam of its kind built in the nineteenth century, and it was among the first concrete structures the Army Corps of Engineers built.

The Ohio was a working river, carrying coal, grain, and manufactured goods through the industrial heartland, but its fluctuating water levels made navigation unreliable. The Davis Island Lock and Dam changed that, providing consistent depth for commercial traffic and setting the engineering template for everything that followed. The structure was eventually replaced in nineteen twenty-two by the nearby Emsworth Locks and Dams, but this was where American river engineering grew up.