Ferries in Michigan

Due to its unique geography, being made of two peninsulas surrounded by the Great Lakes, Michigan has depended on many ferries for connections to transport people, vehicles and trade.

One of these, the SS Badger is one of the last remaining coal steamers on the Great Lakes and serves as a section of US Highway 10 (US 10).

One unique human-powered ferry takes passengers across the Kalamazoo River to a park with a Lake Michigan beach.

The lakes and rivers often provided an easier route of travel than primitive or non-existent roads.

Several of the busiest ferry routes were replaced by bridges or tunnels: Detroit to Windsor, Belle Isle, the Sault Ste.

The law required the ferry service to cease so that the bridge would not have competition and could pay off its construction bonds faster.

[3] The Detroit-Windsor ferries were popular with small-scale bootleggers during Prohibition, especially as border guards were reluctant to search young Canadian women who worked in Detroit offices.

[7] De Tour Village to Drummond Island, connecting M-134 across the DeTour Passage, since 1975, part of the Eastern Upper Peninsula Transportation Authority Former Lake Charlevoix The Ann Arbor Railroad, Grand Trunk, and Chesapeake and Ohio ran train ferries across Lake Michigan.

The first large commercial concerns were the railways whose ferries pioneered concepts in ice breaking and ship design.

[25] Many ferries carried passengers, mostly between Sarnia and Port Huron before the Blue Water Bridge opened in 1938.