Summer day trip on the Dorena-Hickman Ferry: A popular, and convenient, way to travel between Kentucky and Missouri

For farmers, it's a way to haul grain to market; for over-the-road truckers, it may represent the shortest distance between two points for their eighteen-wheelers. And, for some, it provides a pleasant perspective on the Mississippi River.

The Dorena-Hickman Ferry, about 80 miles south-southeast of Cape Girardeau, crosses the Mississippi River seven days a week, several times a day, and links Dorena, Missouri, and Hickman, Kentucky. It's the only direct connection between the two states.

"It's about as close as you can get to a Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn on-the-river experience," says Tammi Hutchison, director of the Mississippi County Port Authority, referring to the people who travel to the ferry, either in Kentucky or Missouri, and pay $2 to travel across the river and back. The 1.25-mile trip takes about 15 minutes.

"When you're traveling west to east, it's downriver, so it's a bit faster," Hutchison says, adding that barge traffic might also be a factor in lengthening the trip.

The Dorena-Hickman Ferry enters the Hickman Harbor to approach the Kentucky landing. (Photo courtesy of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet)

Manned by Capt. Edward Floyd and a single deckhand, the ferry since July 2014 has conveyed more than 17,000 people across the river, Hutchison says, adding that it has carried people from all 50 states, Canada and Mexico. Last year, it carried a car with German plates. Its barge is 120 feet long and 26 feet wide; it can haul two loaded eighteen-wheelers at a time.

Hutchison says the ferry is popular with motorcyclists.

"Some bikers try to cross the Mississippi River anywhere and everywhere they can. It's kind of a bucket-list sort of thing," she says.

In June, as part of the seven-day Ride the Fault Line bicycle tour that took riders to Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky, 235 cyclists crossed the river via the ferry.

Hutchison says the ferry consistently is used by Kentuckians to enjoy activities in Missouri -- specifically, to make their way to St. Louis for Cardinals baseball games or to the popular Lambert's Cafe in Sikeston. She also says the crossing is a favorite for those traveling to the fishing and recreation destinations of Kentucky Lake and Reelfoot Lake in northwestern Tennessee.

The toll schedule and other information are available online at dorena-hickmanferryboat.com. Vehicle tolls are scaled according to size, but for the cross-river excursion, there are one-way flat fees: motorcycles, ATVs and horse-drawn wagons are charged $5, and bicycles and horses pay $2. School groups are welcomed -- advance notice is required -- and those with the group pay $1 each for a round trip.

On the Kentucky side, just north of the ferry landing, is Columbus-Belmont State park, which sits on a bluff and offers dramatic views of the Mississippi, along with camping, a Civil War museum, gift shop and more.

During the summer, the ferry runs from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. While it is scheduled to operate 364 days a year -- Christmas Day being the exception -- there may be times when it is out of service because of mechanical or visibility issues, strong winds, ice or excessively high river levels, as experienced recently. There is no set schedule; a passenger presses a call button at the dock to summon the ferry.

The ferry sits at navigation mile point 922.0 of the Lower Mississippi River, which stretches from the Gulf of Mexico -- mile point 0.0 -- to its intersection with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois. Navigation points are used as river addresses, of sorts, for businesses and points of interest -- bridges, grain terminals, lock-and-dam sites, municipal waterworks, power plants, etc. -- along waterways in various districts as overseen by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. For example, the Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority is at mile point 48 of the Upper Mississippi River, which stretches north from Cairo to the river's headwaters at Itasca, Minnesota. Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis is at 168.7, and Thebes, Illinois, is at 43.7.

While Kentucky and Missouri are connected indirectly at Cairo, via U.S. 60/62 by bridges over the Mississippi and the Ohio, the Mississippi River bridge closed for repairs in March and is not expected to reopen until March 2016. Both bridges sit just above the mouth of the Ohio River.

Keith Todd of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet says, "Since the Ohio is the historic division between the upper and lower parts of the Mississippi, [the Dorena-Hickman] ferry is the farthest-upstream crossing of the Lower Mississippi; the two Cairo bridges are the farthest-downstream crossings of the Upper Mississippi and the Ohio, respectively."

Hutchison points out that the only other ferry on the Mississippi River in Missouri is the Ste. Genevieve-Modoc Ferry, about 60 miles north of Cape Girardeau, which connects the historic French-settlement town to Southern Illinois.