Colorado River Ferry Crossing

The ferry belonged to Ballinger's first, rowdy years. The Handbook of Texas says the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe sold town lots on June 29, 1886, to a crowd of 6,000, and that nine saloons and gambling halls fed a boomtown mood in which stagecoach robberies were not uncommon. By 1888 the railroad had reached San Angelo and the overland stage business ended. That is the year the plaque gives for the first wooden bridge, which put the ferry out of work along with the coaches it had served.

What the plaque says

Colorado River Ferry Crossing Used in 1880s for travel on Ballinger - San Angelo Road. Rates fixed by the county court ranged from one cent for a head of livestock to one dollar for 6 horses and a wagon. Ferry was in use until building of first cedar and pine wood bridge, 1888. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Carnegie Library of Ballinger — 0.7 mi
  A 1909 limestone library with an Ionic portico in a railroad town the Santa Fe created in 1886, one of the few Texas Carnegie libraries still working in its original building.
• Z. I. Hale Museum and Rock Hotel — 16 mi
  A free museum in a Winters optometrist's office, a 1909 railroad hotel and a 1927 implement dealership, with Rogers Hornsby's hometown memorabilia and a 1912 horse-drawn cotton picker.
• Fort Chadbourne — 28 mi
  An 1852 infantry post and Butterfield stage station on a Coke County ranch, its fallen stone buildings rebuilt since 1999 by the descendant of the family that has ranched the land since 1877.

More markers nearby

• Charles H. Noyes — 0.5 mi
• Ballinger — 0.5 mi
• Runnels County — 0.5 mi
• Site of Pickettville — 1.9 mi