Today, this part of the Troy Hill neighborhood boasts river- island living with exclusive townhomes, a business park and a marina. By the 1970s, it was deemed a contaminated “brownfield site.” The island has since been revitalized and renamed Washington’s Landing. After the Civil War, the island became industrialized, housing oil refineries, stockyards and at one time the city’s garbage dump. Herrs Island was named for the Herr family who owned a mill there during the 1700s. Some camping is permitted on the island, although it is only accessible by boat.

The state then purchased it, along with four other Allegheny River islands, to form the Allegheny Islands State Park in 1980. The McDonough Corporation mined sand and gravel on Fourteen Mile Island until the 1970s when the company donated it to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. Boatmen in the 1860s named several Allegheny River islands according to their distance from ‘the Point.’ In 1932, the island was split in two to build a lock and dam. Contrary to what most people think, this island is not fourteen miles long. Originally called Hulings Island or Lanes Island, this stretch of land located in Harmar township became known as Fourteen Mile Island in 1864. Allegheny River Islands Fourteen Mile Island Unlike the other two Pittsburgh rivers, the Monongahela River in our area has no islands. The Allegheny River has the greatest number of islands in our region with the Ohio River coming in second, but what the Ohio lacks in number, it makes up for in size with two of the largest islands. That’s not how the 1988 song Kokomo by the Beach Boys goes, but we do have islands in the Pittsburgh area, and although they may not be tropical paradises, they have interesting histories. Kelargo montego, baby why don’t we go to Fourteen Mile Island…wait.

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