Numerous reports tell of unholy glowing eyes that burn red from the darkness, eerie glimpses of a large snarling Goat-headed man-beast stomping in the wooded shadows, or a frightening apparition of a maniacal Satyr carrying the heads of goats or humans in his hands. By 1856, the small town boasted several homes, a blacksmith shop, three stores, a school, a saloon, a hotel, two doctors, and several lawyers. Also on March 4, 2022, he got into a few arguments with people about metaphysical topics. More tales of strange noises have also been described, including the sounds of horses hoof beats on the bridge, splashing in the creek below, maniacal laughter, and inhuman like growling coming from the surrounding woods. Finally, in May 1859, its post office doors closed forever. A similar tale to Washburns predates the building of the bridge, in which a group of cowboys lynched a goatherder called Jack Kendall. Before the new bridge was built, motorists were required to honk their horns on the one-lane bridge to let other travelers know they were coming. If they did, they always lasted about 5 mins and get spooked, running back to their cars. And its not lost on me that theres a connection between the two legends: both involve a animal man hybrid as well as a bridge. Some reports describe the Goatman's fur as a deep, fiery red, while others describe his coloring as black as night, so black you can hardly see him as he moves through the edges of the trees. However, this changed in 2001 when vehicle traffic was redirected to an adjacent, more contemporary concrete-and-steel bridge. Related: Goatmans Bridge is a reminder of the cowardly Klansmens dastardly deed. Local legend says if you knock on the steel bridge three times at midnight, or perhaps- turn off your car lights and honk three times in summons, then you dare a visitation from the vengeful Goatman thats preceded by the stench of decaying flesh. And luckily for us, the video description was a wall of text almost 900 words long. Signs found around the area clearly denote the special place the bridge and surrounding woods have in the communitys hearts, including one which reads I have many memories of the Old Alton Bridge and I love every one of them, a quote attributed to Wayne Stuart Ryan. Regardless of which origin gets told, old timers warn that knocking three times on the trusses of the bridge is an invitation to judgment, since the ghastly Goatman only spirits away those with the bloodlines of Klansmen or slaveowners into the woods for his terrible revenge. The following is a description of the legend in her own words: There's a bridge in Denton, Texas called Goatman's Bridge. We also run the premiere real-estate site in the hill country at HillCountryRealestate.com. Harrod was last seen at his residence in the 500 block of Carnation Drive Placentia, California sometime between 11:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. on July 27, 2009. The third county seat location was designated in November 1850, about five miles southwest of present-day Corinth on Hickory Creek. Notably, the article mentions neither Oscar Washburn nor a disappearance in 1967. He's half-goat half-man. [3] The belief is based on the legend of a black goat farmer named Oscar Washburn, who was said to have moved his family to a residence just north of the bridge. In the Ghost Adventures: Screaming Room episode on Thursday, the segment will be recapped with commentary from the crew. (, from his website: November 15th 1967: police discover an abandoned car beside Old Alton Bridge, five miles south of Denton, Texas. Liminal areas of crossing can be full of possibility and danger, present injustices are informed by past prejudices, and there are critters like snakes or gators down in the creek that younguns might outta be leery of. Ghost Adventures: Screaming Room will take viewers out of the actual haunted location and into a casual conversation with the Ghost Adventures crew. On the other hand, the book Haunted Plano, Texas by Mary Jacobs, which was published in 2018, has a whole section about the Old Alton Bridge, even though it isnt in Plano. Lermont Stowers-Jones' body was found in a Denton County creek in 2018. I dont know whether that has anything to do with my series here, since Bob had deleted his YouTube video impulsively as well, but if youre listening to this, Bob, hello! Take I-35E S/US-77 S to exit 463 and merge into the I-35 Frontage Rd. Some folks online have given a name for the person who supposedly uploaded this video. Join the Observer community and help support So, anyway, starting from this initial rumor that was immortalized in the form of a YouTube video, the new version of the legend started to spread widely. The Hickory Creek Baptist Church, which continues to stand, was organized in 1855. STOP..GOINGTHERE..PEOPLE! However, the location of the second county seat also proved to be unfavorable due to a lack of potable water, and the state legislature soon directed that the site be moved again. With cars and all their noise safely out of the way, the Old Alton Bridge was free for hikers and nature lovers to pass safely. North Texans endearingly began to call him the Goatman. | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Return Policy, It didnt earn the Goatman title until half a century. Heeter was packing up her belongings at her home in Missouri in order to move in with Harrod in California, and he was preparing for her arrival and looking forward to it. The historic Old Alton Bridge,which connects the towns of Denton and Copper Canyon, has a complex and haunted history. A half a century later a legend of a monstrous half-goat, half-man demon was born. However, descriptions differed on whether Goatman greater resembled a hairy humanoid or a human with the lower portion of a goat similar to the fauns of Greek mythology. The Sheriffs archives made no mention of the event. Their luck with this second townsite was also short-lived; in 1850 they moved once more, to a location five miles from present-day Corinth. This location did grow, and before long, it boasted a hotel and two stores. Well, thats it. The Charley Project is NOT a registered non-profit organization and any donations will NOT be tax-deductible. Most of the film was shot at the Pope Lick Trestle, but scenes showing the characters up on the trestle were shot at another, safer . The legend goes that he had a wife, who died mysteriously and that one night a group of drunken cowboys found the old man out crossing the bridge, herding his goats and drove the animals off the bridge, killing them in the fall. But heres what I can tell you: I just searched for him again and I have discovered that he made a Tiktok back in July and hes posted two videos, both of which show a shirtless man wearing a cow mask and hanging out in the woods. Apparently this commenter left a link a website, goatmansbridge.com which repeated the claim with no citation. The bridge was built in 1884, by the King Iron Manufacturing Bridge Company. Travelers to the Old Alton Bridge, built in 1884 as a busy thoroughfare, have long reported frightening encounters and ghostly experiences with supernatural creatures that have made it a legendary spot for Texas ghost hunters and a topic for numerous books. Oh, also, when people delete their accounts on Reddit, their comments often still appear on the platform and it just says deleted under their username, but I was able to confirm that at least some of the comments that he had posted under his old username were also deleted. Many who have crossed at night. And in the trunk of her vehicle was her cold, bloodied, and decomposing body. My paranormal experiences became a local sensation in Denton, TX and remained the most viewed videos for awhile , even after others began to upload their own experiences. He did reply to a paranormal investigation show with: Anyway, thats what Ive got for this timethe way that Ive traced this story back as close to its source as I can, and the weird twists and turns the story has taken. When approached, the woman is said to vanish. A vicious and hateful group of Klansmen working in the local government began to conspire against him, waiting for Oscar to slip and give them some excuse to be rid of him. I used to be inspired by GAC and big fans of Sam and Colby among many others who are now just making this situation worse for those of us personally involved trying to fix it.This place was relatively unknown before I uploaded the first video about it 12 years ago on Youtube. Please, for the love of all things under the Sun. His son-in-law went to the store and when he returned at 1:00 p.m., he found the housekeeper locked out and waiting on the porch, and Harrod missing. Finally, water shortages forced the county seat to move to a new site in June 1848. The bridges architectural composition is known as a truss, a visually distinct structure of connected elements forming triangular units. They wanted to put up a reward for his safe return, maintain his home and pay his bills. that have haunted our fair city over the years, but a few stand out as truly haunting. Make a one-time donation today for as little as $1. Legend has it that a demon that's half-man and half-goat haunts the bridge. After securing it around Oscars neck, they tossed him over the side. Donations are accepted but not expected; the site remains free-access to all. The Denton County location is notoriously haunted by the spirit of Oscar Washburn, or "Goatman," who was believed to be a former goat farmer. According to legend, a successful goat breeder named Oscar Washburn began to call himself the Goatman. havent been able to find mentions of Oscar Washburn prior to 2008. There have been four known lynching events of white people in Denton County since its founding, and the reason for white lynchings was typically horse theft. Authorities don't believe Harrod was harmed by a . It was just me, my equipment, my dog and the Spirits.. who grew more accustomed to my energy presence the longer I spent out there and got to know what this place was, how beautiful it truly was at night, when the rest of the world just came looking for a quick jump-scare or half-man half goat/ghostly headlights/knock 3 times to summon the demon/goat hooves sounds/shadow figure etc (the Legend quickly began to spin and soon I would realize I set events in motion that nobody EVER couldve expected. Most notably, one that occurred November 15th 1967. But its wild that those details have congealed into this almost monolithic urban legend nowadays. People saw the moth man around the area and it was said that he sort of presaged the collapse of the silver bridge on December 15, 1967, which is a really tragic incident where 46 people died. If his name is uttered during the day, he is awakened and is often even more vicious due to the disruption of his sleep cycle, or so the story goes. He had no known medical conditions when he disappeared, although he did have some short-term memory problems like being unable to remember phone numbers. Most who were brave enough to even make the 30 second journey to the bridge, would stand on it (and im dead serious) for a minute or two and would immediately leave, not even bothering with the well-traversed-in-the-daytime hiking trail to either side along the river. [1] [5][6], The Goatman lore has isn't as well known but there have been some adaptations such as the slimy alien version in the game, Goatman's revenge. The legend goes that they then fitted a noose over his head and threw him over the side of the bridge but when they looked to see whether he was dead, his body had disappeared. [4], According to University of Maryland folklorist Barry Pearson, the Goatman legend began "long, long, long" ago and were further popularized in 1971 when the death of a dog was blamed on Goatman by local residents. The heavily traveled Old Alton Bridge remained in constant use until 2001 when vehicle traffic was moved to an adjacent concrete-and-steel bridge. But for this particular bridge, those feelings may be more grounded than not. So this is a person who perhaps at one point in his life felt very inspired by Godsmack, see you can just use that to paint a mental picture in your mind palace of what this person might be like. Id like to loop back to some of the trickster stories I mentioned in the first episode of this series. And, the Goatman is evidently not alone. us, which seems the perfect opportunity to revisit one of Dentons most That road is known by locals as "The Goatman's Bridge." Townsite lots began to be auctioned in January 1857. Left to right: Jay Wasley, Zak Bagans, Billy Tolley, Aaron Goodwin. Also, for the record, there have also been reports of the lynchings of white people in the area, so I have seems some older stories that seemed to claim that a white goatman had been lynched. There have also been reports of inhuman screams coming from the nearby woods, or maniacal laughter sounding. We are born and bred in The One of the more disturbing variations of bridge experiences tells of a man waiting on the other side of the bridge with a goat head under each arm. A week and a half after he went missing, two of his children filed for conservatorship to get control of his assets. But when they checked the noose to ensure that Oscar had died, they were in for quite the shock: the noose was empty. Put to a vote in November 1856; the county seat was moved again to Denton. The Old Alton Bridge, or more famously known as The Goatman's Bridge, is an old iron-truss bridge just Northeast of Dallas, Texas, near the now uninhabited town of Alton. (Especially because I use dictation software for a lot of my script writing!) Bagans, Goodwin, Billy Tolley and Jay Wasley watch the subject episode and add candid commentary about behind-the-scenes moments. Though Commissioners were appointed and directed to lay out a town and sell lots, no records were ever done, and no public buildings were ever erected. and help keep the future of the Observer, Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our. . It continued to be used until about 2001 when it was replaced with a concrete-and-steel bridge and a new road, which straightened out a sharp curve. On February 19, following a community-wide search, Cathy's 1990 Toyota Corolla was found abandoned in the Placentia Linda Hospital parking lot. theYear=now.getYear()
Within a few years, Oscar had built a reputation for himself as a reliable and trustworthy businessman and a valuable member of the community. Ghostly figures and strange lights are said to appear in the surrounding woods, as well as reports of visitors being touched, grabbed, and having rocks thrown at them. The first few years I spent out there it was mostly barren at night, void of all life or cars driving by or people coming to visit. KKK, Illustrated in Harpers Weekly, 1872. . After his second marriage, Harrod asked to be repaid. Called the Old Alton Bridge, sometimes the Argyle bridge, and is better known amongst the locals as Goatmans Bridge, it was first built to carry horses but would later carry vehicles across the creek. In February 2022, a "six-foot goat man" was supposedly seen near a village called Staverton, in Northamptonshire. I want to say that he screams, but I don't remember. As a mentor once wisely advised, never let the facts of a story obscure the truths in the tale. Shortly afterwards, so the stories go, a family was passing over the bridge at night and encountered the old man, or at least his apparition, standing in front of them, a goats head tucked under each arm. Unaware of the plot against him, Oscar had rather harmlessly installed a sign on the Old Alton Bridge reading This way to the Goatmans. In response, the members of the Klan employed at the local police station drafted a law making it illegal to solicit anything at the bridge, and dually arrested Oscar in August of 1938. places to stay, tourism, events, lodging, and we feature Texas Hill Country info They learn about Satanic worship underneath the bridge and hear stories from f. This person couldnt find newspaper articles to back up the story, but found where the rumor seemed to have started online. Harrod got married on June 29, a month before his disappearance, and his new wife, Fontelle Heeter, was about to move in with him, but he vanished before she arrived. But for this particular bridge, those feelings may be more grounded than not. Now, Im going to recap a bit of the story about the trickster elements that I originally told in the beginning of this series. In a panic, the Klansman returned to the Washburn residence, and killed his family in cold blood. However, not everyone was pleased with Oscars newfound success and acceptance within the North Texas community. Supposedly this was near the location of the bridge. The KKK apparently kidnapped and killed Washburn by throwing him over the bridge. According Driving into the city of Dallas, its stunning skyline immediately catches the eye. In a panic, the mob fled from the bridge. Old Alton Bridge was included in the National Register of Historic Places on July 8, 1988. When the popular businessman proudly hung a sign on the Old Alton Bridge directing This way to the Goatman, it infuriated local Ku Klux Klansmen who plotted violence. On a dark night in August 1938, these hateful men crossed the bridge without their headlights, then burst into Washburns home and drug him from his family to the bridge. The name sounded familiar to me, so I texted one of two people who I went to high school with who Im still in touch with. theYear=theYear+1900
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