The Little Creek-Cape Charles Ferry was a passenger ferry service operating across the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay from the 1930s until 1964. Known also as the Princess Anne-Kiptopeke Beach Ferry or Little Creek-Kiptopeke Beach Ferry, the service connected Virginia Beach, Virginia (then Princess Anne County) with Cape Charles on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Departures from and arrivals to Cape Charles were matched with times of Pennsylvania Railroad passenger trains such as the Del-Mar-Va Express and the Cavalier that operated the length of the Delmarva Peninsula.
Beginning in the 1940s the ferry began accommodating vehicles as well as passengers, with the service then linking the Ocean Highway, a major coastal route.
The service was acquired by an agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1954, ceased operations in April 1964, and was replaced by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. During its peak, the Little Creek Ferry operated 90 one-way trips each day with seven vessels.
The southern terminus of the ferry service in Virginia Beach (originally Princess Anne County) remains accessible today, where it continues to bisect Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek. The original northern terminus in Cape Charles also remains accessible, and these two terminals continue to serve railway barges that ferry rail cars — belonging to Bay Coast Railroad, formerly the Eastern Shore Railroad — across the mouth of the Bay.
In 1949, the northern terminus for ferry service was moved from Cape Charles to Kiptopeke where a new pier was completed in 1951 — shortening the 85 minute crossing by 20 minutes. That now defunct terminus with remnants of the original toll booth lie within Kiptopeke State Park, where a sign from the defunct Tourinns Motor Lodge remains near the former toll booth at picnic shelter #2.
Southern Terminus
Northern Terminus (original, Cape Charles) Northern Terminus (later location, Kiptopke)
Chesapeake Bay Ferry District
The newly formed Virginia Ferry Corporation initiated a motor vehicle-passenger ferry service between Little Creek and Cape Charles on April 1, 1933 paralleling the existing Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) carfloat route (operated by the PRR subsidiary, NYP&N RR Ferry) between Little Creek and Cape Charles. On May 1, 1950, the ferry route was changed from Cape Charles to the newly formed artificial Harbor at Kiptopeke Beach. The VFC was a 50/50 Wilson Line & Pennsylvania RR venture, a Virginia public service company.
The PRR offered passenger-freight & auto ferriage between the Brooke St Terminal in Norfolk, Virginia - Old Point Comfort in Hampton, Virginia & Cape Charles, Virginia, a run. This operation was terminated by the PRR on February 28, 1953.
Amid dissatisfaction with the VFC operations in 1954, by act of the Virginia General Assembly, the Chesapeake Bay Ferry District (CBFD) and a related oversight commission were created, initially with the hopes of improving the ferry service. However, the governmental agency was soon authorized to sell toll revenue bonds, acquire the still-operating private Little Creek Ferry and improve existing ferry service. The VFC was sold and its five operating ferries to the Chesapeake Bay Ferry District for $13 million on May 17, 1956.
The Virginia Department of Transportation automobile-ferry service from Old Point Comfort across Hampton Roads to Willoughby Spit was replaced on November 1, 1957 by the new Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, which followed the Norfolk-Portsmouth Bridge-Tunnel (1952), and was the second bridge-tunnel in Virginia. This stimulated interest in the feasibility of a similar crossing at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.
Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel
A portion of the bond revenue used to purchase the Virginia Ferry Corporation was set aside to study and determine the feasibility of a fixed crossing of the lower bay. It was determined that a bridge-tunnel complex was feasible.
In 1958, the district hired its first executive director, J. Clyde Morris, a long-time governmental manager in Warwick County and the City of Newport News. Soon, steps to consider routing and implementation were underway. Consideration was given to service between the Eastern Shore and both the Peninsula and South Hampton Roads. Eventually, the shortest route, extending between the Eastern Shore and a point in Princess Anne County at Chesapeake Beach (east of Little Creek, west of Lynnhaven Inlet), was selected. An option to also provide a fixed crossing link to Hampton and the Peninsula was not pursued.