Grand Junction’s Lost River Ferry Few People Remember Today

Long before the Fifth Street Bridge ever spanned the Colorado River here in Grand Junction, there was only one real way to get across the water, and that was by ferry.

Back in those frontier days of the early 1880s, the river was still called the Grand River; it wasn’t renamed the Colorado until 1921.

If you needed to get people, wagons, or livestock from town to Orchard Mesa, you had to either swim, row, or hop on a cable-guided ferry.

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What You Need to Know About Grand Junction's River Ferry

The service got its start in 1882 thanks to Patrick Henry Gordon, an early local entrepreneur who set up a ferry at what would become a vital crossing point near the confluence of the Grand and Gunnison rivers.

The ferry ran on a cable stretched across the river, big enough to take two wagons side by side, along with horses and folks heading out to work farms or orchards on the Mesa.

Gordon’s tenure running the ferry was short and tragic. He died that same year, in April 1882, when his boat capsized at night while he was trying to chase down some troublemakers who’d stolen the ferry and were harassing locals. Gunnison County Deputy Sheriff Benjamin A. Scott also lost his life in the mishap.

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Photos from 1897 show teams and wagons loaded up, waiting their turn to cross — a real throwback to the grit and hustle that built this valley.

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Soon enough, bridges replaced the ferry, but what a piece of local history it was. Honestly? Someone should bring back a heritage ferry experience here.

Imagine cruising the Colorado River, maybe with a fishing pole in hand, just like old-time pioneers.