DOWDY'S HOLE

Dowdy's Hole is located on the Bald Eagle Creek a short distance downstream from Eagle Iron Works and Curtin Village. It's a pleasant place to go on a hot summer day.  When I was a kid in the 50's and early 60's, my dad would take me there to fish or to take a dip.  Hanging from the high limb of a tree, there was a rope for swinging out over the water.  My dad was born in Curtin in 1905 and learned to swim in this spot.  He always warned me that it could be a treacherous place.  After all, legend had it, Dowdy was an unfortunate Native American who had drowned there.  
These days, it is not unusual to see folks floating down the Bald Eagle Creek in canoes, kayaks, or inner tubes.  It's not a white-water experience.  It's more like a pleasant-Sunday-afternoon kind of a place. 

Photo Credit: Aaron Bierly -- Citation below, in Behr, R-A

It's a beautiful ride and you get to see fascinating geology along the way. You'll see five distinct rock formations from the Devonian Period -- really old rocks -- formed roughly 400 million years ago, give or take 20 or 30 million years, when this region was under a tropical sea. Aaron Bierly’s beautiful photo above and the geological information was taken from Behr, Rose-Anna, 2016. A float through the Devonian -- A river guide to the geology of Bald Eagle Creek from Milesburg to Dowdy's Hole; Pennsylvania Geology Survey, 4th ser., Trail of Geology 16-117, 14 p. Here is the link to copy into your browser:
​https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312054912_A_float_through_the_Devonian-A_river_guide_to_the_geology_of_Bald_Eagle_Creek_from_Milesburg_to_Dowdy%27s_Hole

Before or after your ride, why not take a tour at Eagle Iron Works and Curtin Village ? Take in the history of 19th Century iron-making in Pennsylvania, and enjoy a picnic in the pavilion.