Article taken from The Columbus Dispatch, October 18, 1895
Special to the Dispatch, Portsmouth, O., Oct. 18
The Ohio river stands at 15 inches in the channel, within an inch of the lowest mark recorded here, that of November, 1884.
All steamboat traffic is at a standstill from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati. A large number of small boats have been beached or sunk in an effort to make one more run before tying up.
The continued drought is greatly impeding the operation of brick works and furnaces in Scioto, Lawrence and Jackson counties. The Cincinnati Portsmouth & Virginia and the Baltimore & Ohio southwestern branch have been obliged to use bank cars for over two months, hauling water from here to their points on the line to supply their freight engines, there being no place on these lines between Portsmouth and Cincinnati, or Portsmouth and Hamden Junction where a supply of water could be depended upon.