Lackey Island: Baltimore Harbor's Only Island

  During a short period in the Spring of 1910, the Baltimore Harbor and Basin would have its only island appear as a rather prominent geographical feature only to disappear from existence a few months later.   It would be a real life instantiation of the fictitious Devon Island author James Michener wrote of in his famous book Chesapeake.

Baltimore Harbor, 1901
(William Flamm map)

  Dubbed as Lackey Island, it was located off shore in the Harbor Basin immediately to the east of Hughes Street (now Key Highway) and directly south and opposite  from the Union Dock (now Pier 6).  As reported by the Baltimore Sun, it was created as a result of dredging machines cutting away about an acre or so of land from the triangular point occupied by the original Old Bay Line, now only a memory.

  The island's namesake is owed to the Chief Engineer of the Harbor Board at the time, Oscar F. Lackey, who designed the bulkheads of these three piers in the Baltimore Inner Harbor.  From earliest geographic history, prior to this design, there was a peninsula that existed connecting from the present Piers 5 and 6 and extending in a southeast direction (refer to the 1901 map, left) which made for a rather narrow and precarious passage for most ships entering the Basin.

Baltimore Harbor, 2014
(Courtesy of Google Maps)

  As a result of Mr. Lackey's design, from 1908 to 1910, the north side Harbor front was becoming transformed by the building of the piers known today as Pier 4, 5, and 6 which are currently occupied by the National Aquarium extension, McCormick & Schmick's, and the Pier 6 Pavilion, respectively (refer to the 2014 map, right).

  According to 1993 Historic American Engineering Board of the National Park Service records, they were among the first reinforced concrete structures erected in seawater in the United States. An interesting side note which distinguishes Pier 6 from the others is that the concrete bulkheads on the east side facing the Jones Falls outlet were faced with granite rather than reinforced concrete.

  Given the time of year, during its brief existence, the once barren spot had begun to sprout green weeds and become inhabited by water fowl.  Before Lackey Island could be incorporated into any Harbor navigation charts, its remains would be removed bucket by bucket and destroyed by the Sanford-Brooks Contracting Company which was responsible for the Piers' construction.

  Their designer, Oscar F. Lackey, was born in 1875 in Washington D.C., moved to
Baltimore with his family when he was 13 years of age. He went to Rock Hill College, and later graduated from Johns Hopkins University with an electrical engineering degree.

  

Oscar F. Lackey
(Portrait Courtesy:
Baltimore Sun)

  On July 6, 1899, at the age of 25 while employed as a civil engineer in the U.S. War Department, Mr. Lackey arrived into the Port of New York aboard a United States transport vessel named the McLellan back from Santiago, Cuba having contracted a severe case of yellow fever.  His case was reported in the New York Times given he was one of the earliest patients to have been treated with a yellow fever serum and was the first person to have fully recovered as a result of the treatment.  Despite this close call with death, he returned to Cuba and continued working for five more years.

  Only five years later as part of the Isthmian Canal Commission as an assistant engineer in construction of the Panama Canal, Mr. Lackey had his back broken while supervising the rock crushing plant at Bas Obispo, Canal Zone, Panama on November 21, 1905.   Although an Act of Congress on February 18, 1913 provided financial relief through payment in the amount of $1,500 for this injury, apparently he never applied for the payment over his remaining lifetime.

  He recuperated nearer to home and from 1906 to 1915 was president and chief engineer of the City Harbor Board. It is during this period that much of Baltimore's present Inner Harbor piers were developed.  By October 1916, Mr. Lackey became employed by Poole Engineering Company to manage a munition plant in LaFayette, Indiana, later becoming its vice-president.  During World War I, Mr. Lackey was made supervising engineer in the U.S. War Department under Major General George W. Goethals (of which the NJ to Staten Island, NY bridge is named) for the construction of Boston, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Norfolk, New Orleans, and Charleston port terminals.

  Although Mr. Lackey would go on to serve from 1924 to 1927 as the head of Baltimore's Bureau of Transportation and later the State Roads Commission to examine the plans for a proposed bridge over the Chesapeake Bay connecting Baltimore with the Eastern Shore, he would ultimately be appointed by Maryland Governor Albert C. Ritchie to head the State Roads Commission in late 1928.

  Unfortunately, this man who was in effect Baltimore's Robert Moses of the Inner Harbor, successfully survived yellow fever and a broken back, ultimately succumbed to pneumonia on December 19, 1928 at a rather young age of 54.  As a Baltimore Sun article aptly stated "Mr. Lackey will have a recollection in after years that the only island ever seen in Baltimore harbor was named in honor of him when he was the directing spirit in the greatest improvements ever made in this port."

(Note: Newspaper article sources are courtesy of the Baltimore Sun)