Читать книгу Cincinnati Haunted Handbook - Jeff Morris - Страница 27

directions

Take I-74 west to exit 7 (Hamilton/Cleves/128). Turn right onto 128, toward the gas stations and Wendy’s. You will go through Miamitown and will get to a traffic light at Harrison Avenue. Turn right on Harrison to cross the haunted bridge.

history

This is the fourth bridge to span this part of the Great Miami River. The first one was a covered bridge that was torn down in 1863 to prevent the Confederate cavalry led by John Hunt Morgan from crossing it. The second one was built in 1894 and was a big steel bridge where at least a couple of fatalities occurred. The first fatality occurred when a hay wagon was going over the bridge in the 1930s and a man on the back of the wagon was taken by surprise by a sudden swerve, falling into the river and drowning. The second fatality occurred as construction work was being done on the bridge in the 1950s. The decking of the bridge had been torn up and the bridge was closed. A man got drunk at the Flicker Inn on Harrison Avenue and tried to drive home. He didn’t realize that the bridge was out, so he started to drive across it, his tires remarkably able to stay on the two steel beams which still crossed the river. About halfway across the bridge, a tire slipped off the beam and his car became stuck. He stepped out of his car to see what had happened, but, because of the lack of decking, he fell into the river below and drowned.

In 1989, plans were made to construct a new bridge, one that would be more like an overpass, an extension of the road itself. In order to build this structure, however, they had to build a temporary bridge to carry traffic while the old bridge was torn down and the new one was built. In May 1989, there had been many storms, and the river level had risen significantly. Debris in the river hit the wooden pylons that supported the bridge. At 5:26 p.m. on May 26, 1989, the temporary span of the Miamitown Bridge collapsed. Officially, one car went down with the bridge, and two people died in the collapse. Witnesses claim that a red truck also went down with the bridge but the red truck was never found, and no one ever reported a red truck missing.

ghost story

With such a long history of tragedy, it’s no wonder that several ghosts have taken up residence on this span of steel and asphalt over the Great Miami River. The most famous and widely reported ghost here is supposedly the driver of the red truck, who everyone saw go down with the bridge but whose vehicle and body were never found. The ghost appears in the form of a glowing white apparition that begins crossing the bridge from the east toward Miamitown. As the ghost crosses the bridge, it slowly starts to dissipate. It never makes it all the way across the bridge without disappearing.

While this glowing white apparition is the most famous ghost, other strange things are reported. People standing on the bridge will often see shadowy figures start to walk across. Almost as quickly as they appear, these figures will vanish as if they were never there and were nothing more than a trick of the eyes.

visiting

This bridge can be visited at any time of the day or night. You can either drive across, or you can park in Miamitown and walk out onto a sidewalk on the south side of the bridge. This sidewalk is always open and is completely safe at all hours since there is a concrete barricade between this sidewalk and the roadway and a large fence between the sidewalk and the river below.