Fredericktown Ferry Unsold
Washington PA Observer Reporter
17 October 2013
By Barbara Miller, Staff Writer
bmiller@observer-reporter.com
At what was supposed to be a bid opening Thursday afternoon in
Uniontown, not one offer was received for the former Fredericktown
ferry, the boat that made its last trip across the Monongahela
River in late August.
The engine was removed from the 65-year-old vessel, which was one
of the last cable ferries east of the Mississippi River, to
prevent oil or fuel leaks. How to proceed from this point will be
up to the Fayette County commissioners. Meanwhile, it appears East
Bethlehem Township officials gave up on the idea of preserving the
35-ton ferry, a despite photo of it plying the river between
Fredericktown, Washington County and LaBelle, Fayette County,
still gracing the township’s website.
“We just dropped the idea,” said Paul Battaglini, president of the
township’s five-member board of commissioners. He said barge
companies that were in the area for the implosion of the Masontown
Bridge Sept. 28 were willing to move the boat to township property
at a cost of $50,000, but the window of opportunity closed once
the bridge removal was complete. Battaglini said the township
hoped to split the cost of the ferry placement between the two
counties.
Washington County Commissioner Larry Maggi said, “We weren’t aware
of anything like that. This is the first I’ve heard of it,
actually.”
Nor was Maggi aware of Thursday’s bid opening, which was
advertised in the Uniontown newspaper and on the Fayette County
website.
“I imagine it’s going to be up for scrap now,” Battaglini said.
“Another piece of history goes down the river, down the tube,
basically. We decided to quit our endeavors. Honestly, now that
the shock of them closing it (has passed), no one seems to have
any kind of interest in it, no interest in us saving it or doing
anything with it anyway.”
The completion of a bridge as part of the Mon-Fayette Expressway
spelled doom for the money-losing red and white ferryboat
Frederick, which ferried the vehicles of coal miners and, later,
corrections officers who worked at the State Correctional
Institution at Fayette.
“It’s just sitting there idle,” said Amy Revak, Fayette County
chief clerk. “It’s really just kind of a shell.”