Legends 17: Haunted Bridges

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Welcome to Lore Legends, a subset of lore episodes that explore the strange tales we whisper in the dark, even if they can't always be proven by the history books.

So if you're ready, let's begin.

It was a very late infrastructure week.

Back in 2018, the British Museum announced that it was working with the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage to preserve and protect an aging public works project.

Well, aging might not exactly cover it.

The project centered around restoring a bridge that has quite the claim to fame.

It's not just old, it's the oldest in the world, clocking in at a staggering 4,000 years.

But while that one particular bridge spent millennia waiting to return to the light of day, you and I probably see modern examples all the time.

From massive landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge to little country bridges right in our own backyard.

These construction projects often define who we are as humans.

We are gap crossers.

For thousands of years, we've endeavored to broaden our minds, expand our territory, and connect with disparate cultures.

We hunger for connection and bridges exist as a literal symbol of that quest.

But that metaphor pops up in one other place.

our discussions of life and death.

Whether it's the rainbow bridge that some people dream of for their pets or a desire to stay in touch with lost loved ones, we have always been looking for a way to reach beyond the veil.

And if the legends are true, there are even some physical bridges out there that are rumored to do the impossible.

They connect the land of the living to that of the dead.

I'm Aaron Manke,

and this is Lore Legends.

Tucked into the northwestern part of Vermont is the small town of Stowe.

It sits at the foot of Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in the state, and is known as the American home of the Von Trapp family, once they left Austria during World War II.

It's also about an hour north of East Corinth, Vermont, one of the filming locations of Tim Burton's 1988 horror comedy, Betelgeuse.

In fact, both towns have something in common, a small wooden bridge overlooking a babbling brook.

But where the spooks and specters of the film were fictional, Stowe has its own haunted history, and Emily's Bridge sits at its center.

Its official name is Gold Brook Covered Bridge, and it was built in 1844.

It's a one-lane, 50-foot crossing that was constructed from sturdy pine.

So sturdy, in fact, that its builder claimed that it would last forever.

Today, the natural wood color has darkened to a muddled brown, but it's still standing.

There are two speed limit signs posted on the bridge, a 10 mile per hour limit for cars, while horses are restricted to a walking pace.

But its robust construction and odd speed restrictions aren't why Goldbrook Covered Bridge is so well known.

It has a much darker reputation, all because of one young girl, named Emily.

There are several iterations of the tale, all of which end the same way, with Emily's spirit haunting the now namesake bridge.

According to one version of the legend, Emily was a teenage girl living either in the 1920s or the mid-1800s.

She was involved with a young man whom she loved deeply, so much so that the two had planned on getting married.

They agreed to meet one day at the covered bridge.

Some say the wedding itself was set to occur right there.

Unfortunately, Emily's parents didn't approve of her suitor.

On the day they were scheduled to wed, Emily's lover didn't arrive at the bridge at the appointed hour.

She was distraught, and in her anguish, she hanged herself there from the rafters.

Another version of the story claims that Emily was a young bride waiting at the altar for a groom who never showed up at the church.

In that story, Emily jumped into a carriage and sped away, possibly off to confront her fiancée herself.

But in her anger and sadness, she accidentally went careening into a rock-filled brook near the bridge.

And in a third version of Emily's tragic tale, she's seen jumping off the side of the bridge.

The only problem with that variation though is that the bridge isn't too far off the ground.

So it was more likely that she jumped from a higher spot nearby.

Of course, thanks to classic tales like Romeo and Juliet, stories of ill-fated lovers with disapproving parents often involve some kind of violence, and Emily's is no different.

It's been suggested that she was killed on the bridge by her fiancé's mother to keep them from getting married.

And others claim that she told her lover that she was pregnant and excited to have a child with him.

But he did not take the news well, and she threatened to tell the whole town about it if he left her.

To keep her quiet, they say he killed her and possibly left town.

And I'll be honest, the narrative surrounding Emily's tragic wedding day changes so much with each retelling, it's hard to pin down one specific account.

But don't come to Stowe thinking that you'll find a mountain of records on Emily and her family.

According to the town's historical society, there is no known record of anyone named Emily taking her own life or dying on or near the bridge.

And yet, there is one account from the 1920s of a little girl who sadly fell off the bridge and died when she hit her head on one of the boulders below.

Was her name Emily?

We don't know.

We don't even know what Emily's full name was.

Still, her ghost is said to appear to those who travel over the bridge, and she is anything but friendly in these stories.

Apparently, she's quite angry and brandishes long nails that slash cars driving across the bridge.

Scarier still is how she targets pedestrians, leaving long scratches down their backs.

Even horses aren't spared from her supernatural anger issues.

According to the local stories, you can also see Emily's ghostly figure hanging from the bridge's rafters, if that's the version of her story that you believe.

Those who do have reported all of the classic anomalies on the bridge, including orbs and photographs, feelings of cold spots, and the malfunctioning of electronic equipment.

And those who want to experience all of this for themselves are welcome to pay the bridge a visit.

Just be careful though, because if you go there between midnight and 3 a.m., you might just encounter Emily's spirit.

It's a bridge without a name.

Just outside of Indianapolis in the town of Avon is a bridge that has existed there for over a century.

Completed in 1907, this overpass arches above South County Road 625 East and White Lit Creek.

Its cement and steel frame boasts three massive archways, measuring 75 feet apiece, which are then topped with 24 smaller arches, each about seven and a half feet tall.

The bridge was designed by an engineer named W.M.

Dunn and was built by the Savage Construction Company to carry trains traveling to and from Indianapolis's Union Station.

Just a year after its completion, the bridge was double-tracked, meaning that instead of trains sharing one track and taking turns going in opposite directions, they can now travel simultaneously without delay.

Sadly though, by that time, several men had already lost their lives due to various accidents.

Despite that, the bridge continued to grow in use and popularity.

It's a well-known local landmark in Avon that's still in use today.

It's even featured on the town's official seal.

Of course, those accidents didn't go unnoticed though, and the men who died apparently won't let anyone forget them.

The first claims of spectral sightings date all the way back to November of 1908.

That's when one local newspaper reported the bridge as being haunted due to several deadly incidents that occurred there.

According to the Plainfield caller, sounds of a great weight falling into the water underneath are sometimes heard, but the water remains perfectly calm with no sign of having been disturbed.

J.W.

Bunk Atherton, one of our most well-known citizens, passed the bridge just after dark on election night.

and he declares he saw some spirits hovering around the east end of the structure.

On top of that, people have allegedly heard screaming and moaning coming from the vicinity of the bridge, and there are several local legends that explain why.

One story claims that a worker who was assisting with its construction was sawing a wooden beam when he plummeted into a pool of wet concrete.

The foreman refused to stop and the man was entombed within.

They say that a six-foot-long two-man cross-cut saw was reportedly left behind in the concrete as well.

Now, some say that it was part of an attempt by his co-workers to save his life, you know, by extending him one end to grab onto.

By that time, though, the concrete had already had a strong enough grip on his body.

His colleagues could only watch as he was swallowed by the hardening liquid.

In most retellings of this story, the worker was either black, Chinese, or Irish, and the foreman's racism or anti-immigrant sentiment was the reason why he made no attempt to save the man's life.

Whether or not this is true, the worker's body is said to still be encased in the cement of the bridge.

And on top of all of that, some people swear that if you look at the spot where he died, you can still see the outline of his face.

It's also been rumored that he died with his arm poking out of the cement and his fellow workers simply cut it off.

Other possible explanations for the haunting activity at the bridge claim that four men fell to their death in the creek under the bridge during its construction.

Not only have visitors reported hearing those screams, but also the thumps and splashes of their bodies hitting the water.

But not all of the tragic tales surrounding the bridge involve workers.

One legend claims that a woman had been hurrying across the tracks on foot while carrying her sick baby.

She was on her way to a doctor, they say, when her foot got caught in the tracks, causing her to drop the child to its death.

Other versions of that story also involve the mother tumbling and dying as well, or losing her battle with grief and taking her own life later on.

They say that if you listen closely, you may hear her ghostly screams as she cries out for her lost child.

And finally, one more popular legend holds that a boy was late coming home from his girlfriend's house on foot.

As he crossed the bridge, he saw a train's light in the distance, its horns blaring at him to get out of the way.

The boy instinctively jumped off the bridge, but quickly realized that he was too high off the ground and that he was going to die.

The scream heard at night, preceded by a train whistle, is said to be his, just before his body hits the ground.

I do have to say though that skeptics are quick to point out that what ghost hunters and the morbidly curious believe to be ghostly shrieks are actually just reverberations in the hollows of the bridge from trains passing overhead.

Which does make sense, but true believers don't let acoustic science get in the way of a good scare, do they?

They've reported everything from glowing blue-green lights at night to visible tears on the concrete in the summer.

The town, though, doesn't seem phased by the rumors.

They've even placed an informative sign nearby titled The Haunted Bridge, complete with short summaries of some of the most popular legends.

It's worth a read.

Just watch your step.

London Bridge is falling down.

There aren't a lot of songs from our childhoods that are as memorable as that, but the story behind the real bridge is one that shouldn't be forgotten.

Built by a guy named Peter of Colchurch between 1176 and 1209, the old London Bridge that we know from the nursery rhyme was constructed of stone.

It had been built to replace a series of wooden bridges left behind by London's Roman founders.

But in 1799, a Scottish engineer named John Rennie stepped in to design a new London Bridge, which was finally dedicated on August 1st of 1831.

And the bridge held up quite well for the next 70 years or so.

That is until they showed up.

And by they, I'm talking about cars.

To no one's surprise, the 1,000-foot-long granite bridge built during the early 19th century was no match for the automobile.

As people began driving on it, the structure started sinking into the Thames at a rate of about an inch every eight years.

By 1924, one side of the bridge was actually four inches lower than the other.

But it wasn't until the 1960s when officials decided that it was time to replace it.

Of course, hauling off the old bridge and building a new one would cost a pretty penny.

And all that granite would wind up in a junkyard anyway.

So one city councillor came up with another way.

His name was Ivan Lucan, and his answer to their problems was simple.

Sell London Bridge to the United States.

Lucan landed in America in 1968 with one mission, sell the historic landmark by any means necessary.

He even held a press conference in New York where he announced, London Bridge is not just a bridge, it is the heir of 2,000 years of history.

Now, to be fair, most people found the bridge to be ugly and unimpressive, but one Arizona man saw its potential.

Robert P.

McCulloch Sr.

had purchased 26 square miles of desert on the shores of Lake Havasu back in 1963.

He apparently made his fortune selling motorboats and chainsaws.

But according to him, the secret to his success was actually, as he put it, booze and broads.

I know, charming, right?

He was already in the process of turning Lake Havasu City into a tourist destination, aided by his buddy Cornelius Vanderbilt Wood, the man who designed Disneyland.

He had drawn a number of refugees from the freezing Midwest to his sunny desert oasis and believed that London Bridge would be just the thing to pull in even more.

On April 18th of 1968, McCulloch purchased London Bridge for roughly $2.5 million, more than $21 million today.

But getting the bridge from London to Lake Havasu was a miracle of modern engineering.

It was dismantled, brick by brick, with workers labeling each one with its specific position.

The bricks were then put into crates and loaded onto a cargo ship bound for Long Beach, California.

A convoy of trucks picked up those crates and carted them all the way to Lake Havasu, where a construction crew reassembled the bridge to its former glory.

$7 million and three years later, London Bridge officially reopened in its new desert home on October 10th, 1971.

12,000 people, more than the population of Lake Havasu City at the time, attended the lavish opening ceremony.

But if the legends are true, they didn't just transport a crumbling British landmark overseas.

They also brought some ghosts along for the ride.

In fact, the first report of a haunting at London Bridge came from a woman who attended the opening ceremony in 1971.

According to her story, she witnessed a group of four people wearing old period clothing walking nearby.

She initially thought that they were part of the event, hired to provide period-specific ambiance to the festivities.

But as soon as others got a look at them too, the quartet disappeared.

Others have allegedly witnessed a man wearing a top hat and cape, cape, believing the figure to be none other than the ghost of Jack the Ripper himself.

But the most frequently witnessed apparition is that of a woman in a black dress, who's often seen hurrying across the bridge, clutching her purse in her hands.

People claim to have seen her leap off the bridge into the water at night, although she never causes a splash.

Instead, she vanishes before she ever reaches the bottom.

And it's a really interesting thing to ponder, isn't it?

A lot of paranormal experts believe that ghosts are tied to the physical locations where they died, while others claim that ghosts can haunt any place that was important to them in life.

So, perhaps a few old London souls really are trapped in the granite of the famed bridge, unable to move on, despite the bridge itself doing a lot of moving.

But at least they've got the sun on their backs and some sand beneath their feet.

Honestly, there are worse places to haunt than Lake Havasu.

Digging anywhere is rarely a simple task, even more so when that digging takes place in a city as ancient as London.

For example, back in 2007, the current London Bridge was undergoing some updates, with builders excavating under it for a tourist attraction called the London Bridge Experience.

And that's when they uncovered something horrifying, a mass grave.

The remains found within it were dated to the 1600s, and it was believed that the area had once been used as a plague pit during the time of the Black Death.

Although there were also several skulls with holes bored into them hinting that those were executed criminals.

Now of course you know plague pits were a common solution to the problem of mass death back in the day when as many as one-fifth of London's population succumbed to the illness.

The deficiency always comes at a cost and it's believed by some that this lack of a Christian burial led to some pretty restless spirits.

According to a story from the BBC, workers who were helping out to build that exhibit reported that light bulbs mysteriously went out, at least a dozen in a single week in one instance, and tools disappeared as well, ranging from hammers and screwdrivers to an entire power drill.

A number of the contractors even threatened to quit, so frightening were the experiences.

One of the men in charge of the project claimed, and I quote, Even the toughest lads aren't keen to be down in the catacombs on their own now, and I've noticed that they're tending to be moving around the site in pairs.

I can't blame them, really.

There is a strange feel about the the place.

And that sensation continues to this day.

The London Bridge Experience even boasts an award, naming it one of the UK's scariest attractions.

A reputation that's helped along by the costumed tour guides who play various historical characters, spanning the full 2,000 years of the location's history.

And honestly, it's easy to believe that the site is haunted.

Although there is a slight complication.

Those catacombs predate the current London Bridge, which means if there are restless spirits connected to those remains, they might have been exported to America along with the old bridge.

Or maybe it doesn't matter.

Perhaps the bigger lesson here is also the more frightening one: that no matter what side of a bridge you're on, you're always a few paces away from a terrifying past.

Bridges have always been fascinating structures, both for their purpose and as convenient metaphor.

So I hope you enjoyed our tour today through a handful of history's most haunted examples.

But we're not done quite yet.

I've got one more spooky bridge legend to share with you.

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Bridges have a way of letting us be in two places at once, or at least as close as we might be able to get to that idea.

And that doesn't just apply to the living.

Take, for example, the legend of Lydia.

Her story takes place in Jamestown, North Carolina, home to two important bridges.

The first is a railroad bridge over East Main Street, constructed sometime around 1940 and still in use today.

And the other is a nearby bridge that happens to be abandoned, mostly obscured by nests of vines and overgrowth.

What's strange though is that Lydia has been seen beneath both of these bridges.

Strange because Lydia's tale dates back to 1924, prior to the construction of the railroad bridge.

But it's a classic vanishing hitchhiker legend and I want to share it with you.

According to most versions of her story, Lydia was either on her way home from a dance or on her way to her high school prom.

In most retellings though, it was raining that night, and suddenly her car hit a rough patch and skidded into the bridge.

Now, depending on who's telling you the story, sometimes Lydia is killed.

Other times, it's her boyfriend who dies.

Still, there are some versions where Lydia is actually walking home from the prom under the bridge, possibly because her boyfriend was drunk and she didn't want to get in the car with him.

Overcome with grief for her lost partners, locals say that Lydia took her own life in the same place where he died, the bridge.

Ever since, she has haunted that underpass, wearing a gown of flowing white fabric.

She's even been known to flag down drivers and ask for a ride home.

As the story goes in those situations, each motorist who welcomes her into their car soon discovers that she has vanished before reaching the address that she gave them.

And after knocking on the door of that house, the driver will usually learn that the hitchhiking young woman matched the description of the homeowner's daughter, a daughter who was killed in a car crash, many years before.

And like so many examples of local legend, Lydia's story is ever-evolving.

Some assert that she only appears on Saturday nights that are foggy and rainy, and that in addition to seeing her under the bridge, you can also hear someone calling out her name, searching for her.

But with so many variations in the legend, it's easy to believe that Lydia was simply a tall tale, drummed up by local teens to scare each other at slumber parties or summer camps.

But local folklorists Amy Greer and Michael Reneger might have found the truth.

Lydia, they say, was actually a 35-year-old woman named Annie L.

Jackson.

And the historical record seems to back this up.

Annie worked in a local cigar factory in 1920 when she died in a bad car accident.

It seems the driver of the vehicle in which she was a passenger lost control near the location of the two bridges.

The car flipped, tossing Annie out, where she died from her injuries before she could be taken to the hospital.

So, where did Lydia come from?

Well, Greer and Reneger believe that mystery can be solved by her middle initial.

It seems likely that the L in Annie L.

Jackson gave rise to the name Lydia in the legend.

But while we don't know Annie's full middle name, we do know that her maternal grandmother's name was Lucinda and her nickname was Lydia.

Solved or not, the legend of Lydia and her tragic death stands as just one more example of the power of these kinds of stories.

The past might fade away as time goes on, but we can always return for a visit by crossing the bridge of folklore.

This episode of Lore Legends was produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with writing by Harry Marks and research by Cassandra De Alba.

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