Old River Station, Cincinnati Water Works

Cincinnati shows what filtration did for a city drinking from a busy river. The Old River Station, built from 1898 to 1907 on the Ohio about 10 miles upstream, used the rapid sand filtration process George W. Fuller had researched, with the Eden Park water works serving as the testing site, and the new system went into operation in November 1907. The yearly typhoid toll tells the story: 239 deaths in 1906, 157 in 1907, 67 in 1908, the first year of filtration, and 46 in 1909. For a reader who wants the drop in plain numbers, this is the entry.