From Anderson, South Carolina to Monmouth, Illinois, crybaby bridges across America are said to be haunted by the newborns who were supposedly murdered there.
CrimsonDragonPhotographicArts , Wikimedia CommonsThe Van Sant Covered Bridge , a crybaby bridgework in New Hope , Pennsylvania .
In rural field across the United States , nervous situation known as “ crybaby bridges ” sop up funny locals and countless tourists grip by the supernatural .
Named for the local legends of ghostly shout supposedly pick up near the bridge , these sites are said to be haunted by the spirits of sister whose mothers tossed them off the bridge or else drowned them in the waters below . Today , it is suppose that traveler get over a crybaby span at Nox can still hear the wails of the traumatise small fry .
CrimsonDragonPhotographicArts, Wikimedia CommonsThe Van Sant Covered Bridge, a crybaby bridge in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
But what spawned these legends ? And how much truth is there to them , really ?
Here ’s everything you need to bed about crybaby bridges and the shivery stories surrounding them .
The Weeping Waters Of A Crybaby Bridge
There are dozens of crybaby bridge across the United States . Some — like Sleepy Hollow Road in Kentucky , Rogues Hollow in Ohio , and theHelltowncrybaby bridge in Ohio — really deliver on the name front . And while each has its own specific local lore , there are often similarities between the tales .
A crybaby bridge caption typically consists of three key ingredients : a diachronic bridge over a river or creek , a baby , and someone — usually the baby ’s mother — responsible for that baby ’s demise .
In most stories , the mother , in some body politic of distress , resolve to throw her babe from the bridge deck , either because the youngster is unwanted or deformed or because she ’s ineffectual to care for it . Locals claim you could still get word the baby ’s battle cry at night to this twenty-four hour period , and fit in to some story , you could also hear the distraught mother shout out in suffering as she looks for her lose tyke .
YouTubeThe crybaby bridge in Anderson, South Carolina.
YouTubeThe crybaby bridge in Anderson , South Carolina .
One schoolbook example of a crybaby bridge caption is the one circumvent the Van Sant bridge in New Hope , Pennsylvania . The story buy the farm that a woman became fraught out of spousal relationship and was repudiate by her crime syndicate . AsAtlas Obscurareports , the mother was purportedly so overwrought that she flung her child off of the bridgework — and then hung herself from its rafters .
Debunking The Legend Of Monmouth, Illinois’ Haunted Bridge
One of the most infamous crybaby bridges sits in Monmouth , Illinois . The original bridge , which reportedly was made of wood , remain firm for about 75 years before being moved from its original location in the 1930s .
Today , the new single - lane bridge is made of blade and stand above Cedar Creek , about four miles alfresco of Monmouth . But even after this localisation change , local spring chicken have kept the crybaby caption alive .
allot to one legend , radiocommunication stationQ985reports , a inundation do an elementary schooling bus to careen off the side of the span , drowning every last nipper on control panel .
Flickr/Andrew BorgenA crybaby bridge in Helltown, Ohio.
To this Clarence Shepard Day Jr. , it ’s enunciate that if someone frame their cable car in electroneutral while drive across the bridge deck at Nox and it sheer toward the edge , the ghostly hand of those child will push the car back to rubber . Legend also says that if you dust babe powder on your rearward bumper , you ’ll be capable to see the child ’s fingerprints .
Paranormal police detective Barb Huyser began investigating the Monmouth crybaby bridge legends in 2001 . TheReview Atlasreports that Huyser interview older citizens about their memories of the bridge , and also debunked the theory about spook shaver advertize the car , explaining that the virtuoso of being pushed is due to a slight incline on the span .
“ This is an optic illusion core due to the way the basis is at the ending of the bridge . Although it does not bet like it , there is a slim ramp , ” Huyser aver . And the handprints sometimes seen on the car afterward , she explained , are not the imprints forget by trace but by humans , because of the oil people left behind after extend to the car .
Flickr/Matthew O’ThompsonskiA crybaby bridge in Bowie, Maryland.
Huyser found no grounds of a haunting at the steel crybaby bridge circuit , and in belated 2021 the bridge reportedly close permanently due to concern over the safety of the bridgework ’s complex body part .
But because the locating of the original wooden crybaby bridge circuit was lost to history , she was ineffective to conduct paranormal experiments there , technically go out launch the possibility that that land site may be haunted .
“ Monmouth is an sometime town , so there are ghosts here , ” Huyser said .
The Many Crybaby Bridges Of Ohio
For whatever grounds , the land of Ohio look to be a exceptional crybaby bridge hotbed , brag several of these fable in towns across the state .
Perhaps the most ill-famed of these is located off Egypt Road in Salem , Ohio . As in other crybaby bridge legends , one version of the story tell a young adult female became meaning out of union and thrash about her undesirable child over the bridge after her crime syndicate disowned her .
Flickr / Andrew BorgenA crybaby span in Helltown , Ohio .
According toWFMJ , another caption read that a yearling once wandered into the water below the bridge and drowned as its distracted parents reason , and today some exact to have interpret the spiritual figure of the founder lurking near the site , still count for his child .
These spooky stories have been bolstered by rumors of religious cult activity in the area surrounding the bridge . In 2010,WFMJreports , a 60 - twelvemonth - old woman was strangled to death and left near the bridge , her physical structure covered in burns .
Today , locals looking for a good scare shoot the breeze the bridge circuit , and they say that if you park your auto there and shine your headlights right on at midnight , a ghostly mist will rise up from the body of water towards you . Others say that if you traverse the bridge deck and keep following the road , you will just vanish .
Elsewhere in Ohio , on Maud Hughes Road in Liberty Township , another crybaby bridge pose above geartrain runway , and at least 36 people are report to have been found dead there , according toCreepy Cincinnati , whether by felo-de-se or tragical accidents .
These reports have perhaps determine the spread of urban caption about the Maud Hughes Road chicken bridge . In one account , a woman fell to her death after leap from the bridge to escape pursuers . Another legend say a couple drove onto the span and got stuck . The man left to depend for help — only to come back to ascertain his girl hanging from the span .
Today , visitors to this site claim to have heard chilling screaming or seen mist , floating orbs , or ghostly figures near the span .
Eerie Legends Of Haunted Bridges Across Texas
Texas , too , is home to a routine of crybaby bridge circuit legends . Lore about one bridge just alfresco of De Kalb says a female parent once dove her car off of the bridge into the creek , causing her baby to dunk into the body of water and drown .
Lufkin has a similar tale , and according toTexas Escapes , one visitor who drove through the bridge take to have found a baby ’s handprint on her machine window later on .
Then there ’s the “ Sarah Jane Bridge ” in Port Neches , Texas , which is supposedly named for a murder there .
The story goes that a man mangle a woman , then threw the infant into the alligator - infested water below . In some news report , the baby was named Sarah Jane , and the ghost of a woman still searches for her kid , calling out to “ Sarah Jane . ” And in others , the female parent herself is Sarah Jane .
In reality , according to theMidcounty Chronicle , the bridge deck was named after Sarah Jane Sweeney Block , who died at the age of 99 and whose shaver make it into maturity .
The Spooky History Of The Bowie Crybaby Bridge
In 1984 , a crybaby bridge in Bowie , Maryland quarter the aid ofThe Washington Postfor a scarey cause .
Flickr / Matthew O’ThompsonskiA crybaby bridge in Bowie , Maryland .
Over a ten - year period go out back to 1974 , a stain lane off of Lottsford Road moderate down to the crybaby bridge circuit developed a reputation as a popular dumping undercoat for dead bodies . During that clock time , at least five soundbox turned up on the route , though topical anesthetic say the number was closer to 14 , and another dupe was reportedly killed there but left elsewhere .
“ Every time they ’d turn around , they were find either a prostitute from the District or a dope dealer from downtown , ” a local police force tribal chief recalled from his days as a county officer in the former seventies . Meanwhile , many of the XII or so local kinsperson near the bridge said they refused to drive there after night .
“ I reckon that ’s about the lonesomest road there is , ” enunciate a 64 - year - old granger who experience nearby — and who once find out a body dump on his driveway . “ That ’s close enough for me . ”
Over the years , perhaps because of the internet site ’s reputation as a “ underprice ground , ” the bridge has remained the shopping mall of a number of folk legends . Some say the bridge is stalk by theGoatman , a bloody-minded half - man , half - butt teras long bruit to roam the sphere , looking for his next dupe .
Others say the bridge circuit is stalk by the ghosts of child who decease there . A pamphlet of county traditional knowledge published in 1984 by students at Queen Anne School , an Episcopal academy near Lottsford Road , recognize the tale of the crybaby span :
“ When you labor over this bridge deck on a nebulous night when there are no stars glow , you could get word the crying of a baby . ”
Whether or not these narrative have any foundation in reality , to call in a crybaby bridge is to go down roads less traveled . very or not , haunted or imaginary , presume you frustrate one at night ?
Because if you go down to the Wood tonight , you may be in for a scare .
After learning about Crybaby Bridges , take about the terrify legend behind theGoatman ’s Bridgein rural Texas . Then , get word about theeerie mystery of Overtoun Bridge , Scotland ’s infamous dog suicide hotspot .
