Certain river landmarks do little more than signal good boat landings nowadays. Yet, years ago, these places docked ferries that funneled folks from one side to the other.
A multitude of ferries operated in the 19th and 20th centuries on the rivers and creeks throughout George and Jackson counties. The ferry history intertwines with the two counties because during a large portion of the years of ferry operations, George County was still part of Jackson County. George County was not formed until 1910. Pascagoula River ferry crossings included Merrill, Fairley, Bilbo, Reeves/Wilkerson, Allman, Graham/Forehand, Dwyer and Becht. Along the Escatawpa River were Randall’s, Elder’s, Dicken’s, Tanner’s, Turner’s and Howell’s Ferries. Other ferries served Black Creek and Red Creek.
Ferries not only carried people but also everything from cattle to cars. An ordinary system could transport one truck loaded with logs or up to three cars, but not both a car and a log truck. Cables tied from one riverbank to the other kept the barges from drifting off course. Prior to using cables, early ferries made it to the other side using poles and manpower. In the 1900s, car engines attached underneath the barges propelled ferries to the other side.
Private individuals or families owned the first ferries. Most charged fees. A few operated freely as a community service and required users to ferry themselves. Users were expected to leave a skiff on one side and the ferry flat on the other so that no one was stranded on either bank.
Later, county boards of supervisors owned many of the barges and administered ferry management. Interested ferrymen submitted bids for monthly wages to operate the ferries. Bids averaged $100 to $150 per month. However, the lowest bidder didn’t always win because supervisors considered the bidder’s proof of manpower to operate the system 24 hours a day.
Travel increased by the mid-1920s and citizens yearned for bridges. According to an old issue of The Chronicle-Star, 865 automobiles crossed at the Pascagoula River via ferry on July 4, 1925. The Moss Point ferry put more than 700 cars across the Escatawpa River that day. Most of those crossing the Escatawpa were headed to the Fireman’s Picnic in Pascagoula. Among the crowd were prominent citizens of that era like federal highway engineers R.E. Toms and F.A. Davis and state highway engineer H.C. Deitzer, “who had ample time to see the need for bridges over major streams in Jackson County,” the newspaper said.
In 1926, Jackson County hired a contractor to build concrete bridges over the Pascagoula River and the Escatawpa River. Both opened in 1928. These two bridges accommodated the Old Spanish Trail that connected New Orleans, La. to Pensacola, Fla. The strip included bridges and causeways that were once classed as impossible to construct.
According to Dr. Cyril Cain’s Four Centuries on the Pascagoula, the change in travel within the life span of a man living in 1956 has been “nothing less than miraculous.” Cain wrote in his historical accounting, “In his youth he traveled in ox-driven or horse-drawn vehicles over dirt roads and pole causeways, across streams by hand-managed ferries or wooden bridges; now he travels in ‘horseless carriages’ over paved roads and cantilever bridges. The time from Mobile to New Orleans has been cut from eight days to four hours, if he stays on the ground, and if he is in a hurry, he can take to the air and still further cut the time to 40 minutes.”
