It provides the only direct road connection between the two states' mainlands; however, they are indirectly connected at Cairo, Illinois via US 60/US 62 over the Cairo Mississippi River Bridge and the Cairo Ohio River Bridge, both just above the mouth of the Ohio River. Nonetheless, since the Ohio is the historic division between the upper & lower parts of the Mississippi, this 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.
