[1] Before the American Civil War, Joseph Davis developed his 5,000 acres (20 km2) Hurricane Plantation for cotton production on the peninsula.

They operated them for several years, but declining cotton prices, economic hard times in the financial panic, and the repeated flooding caused failure.

After several years of litigation, in 1878 Jefferson Davis gained legal possession of Brierfield plantation from his brother's heirs.

As of 1887 there were a number of working plantations in and around Davis Island, which also had " a beautiful lake some eighteen or twenty miles in length.

On the opposite side is Killecrankie, owned by Mr. T. S. Coons...Then comes Ion and Woodburn, belonging to the Citizens Bank, New Orleans, and once the property of Mr. Joshua James, whose fine residence was destroyed by fire during Grant's march to Bruinsburg.

Directly opposite on the Louisiana [side], there is what is left of Point Pleasant, owned by K. and A. W. Turner, and the Bura by Messrs. McMillan and Guthrie.

"[2] Following the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, which inundated nearly 30,000 square miles (78,000 km2), the US Army Corps of Engineers raised the height of the levees to try to prevent such damage in the future.