Category: Mon Valley Miscellany || By

"McKees' Port" is named for the ferry boat operation that the McKee Family ran from 1769 until the late 1800s.

Until modern construction materials such as iron, steel and concrete made long highway bridges safe and feasible, ferries were often the only way to reliably cross western Pennsylvania's many rivers.

One of the last remaining ferry boats in the eastern United States stopped running this week. The Fredericktown Ferry, which connected Luzerne Twp., Fayette County, with East Bethlehem Twp., Washington County, was scheduled to make its last trip today (Aug. 30). But high water forced the closure of operations two days early.

A ferry boat first began serving the villages of Labelle and Fredericktown in 1790. The current boat, which was pulled across the river by an underwater cable, dates from 1948, according to reports by Scott Beveridge in the Observer-Reporter.

The 400-foot ferry ride across the Monongahela River saved local residents about an eight-mile round trip to the nearest highway bridge.

The Fredericktown Ferry was privately operated until 1969, when its then-owners closed it due to lack of profit.

In 1979, Washington and Fayette counties agreed to assume operation of the ferry, with the counties each responsible for 50 percent of the costs. It operated from 6:15 a.m. to 9:45 p.m. Monday through Friday, closing at 1:45 p.m. on Saturdays.

Fares for cars were 50 cents for pedestrians, $1 for motorcycles, $2 for cars, $2.50 for pickup trucks, and $3.50 for two-ton trucks.

Until July 2012, about 200 cars per day used the ferry. But ridership was cut more than in half that month when a new bridge opened on the Mon-Fayette Expressway, Beveridge reports. The operation, run by the Fayette County Bridge Department, lost $28,000 last year.

In 2009, according to Jennifer Reeger of the Tribune-Review, the federal government offered Fayette and Washington officials nearly $1 million to help rehabilitate the ferry operation, which largely served employees of a nearby state prison, but the counties declined the money.

This past February, a report by Pittsburgh's WPXI-TV attacked the Fredericktown Ferry, arguing that it was a "waste of tax dollars."

Three months later, citing declining use and increasing expenses, the Fayette County commissioners voted to close the ferry. Washington County commissioners declined to assume operations.

A group called "Friends of the Fredericktown Ferry," formed on Facebook, has attempted, so far unsuccessfully, to convince the counties to keep the ferry open as a tourist attraction. Fewer than 10 river ferries are said to still exist east of the Mississippi River.