Haunted Old Bridge in Raleigh?

[Captain Awesome]

I've been trying to find out the location of this bridge since I was in high school to no avail. There is a story I've heard for years:

"Raleigh - Old Bridge -

At 12:00 midnight, if you cross this bridge in the middle of nowhere, your car cuts off. You can hear children screaming and after it fades, you can drive your car off the bridge. There will be handprints all over the car, also. You can't start your car again until the screams fade."

Not that I believe the story, but it would be fun to head out there this week and scare my girlfriend if I could find it. Does anybody know where this bridge is?

[RaleighRob]

Where did you see that??

Cuz that's the EXACT same ghost story for a bridge in a rural area just northwest of Winston-Salem that I grew up hearing about!

[DPK]

And the "hands on the car" part is a remnant of a separate legend involving a rail crossing, school bus, and dead children in some rural part of America. I can't remember exactly but it was on the History Channel at one point.

Just take your girl to some random bridge outside the city, cut the power, and viola - fake ghost story. Kick up some dust on the back of your car and make fake prints before you head out without her seeing. As for the screaming part, um... get your friends to hide out in the woods or something.

[Jones_]

There just happened to be a bridge story in the Sunday N&O....some pre Civil War gothic thing that is in NW South Carolina....kind of a long drive....could also point you to some victorian stone arch bridges in the middle of Sleepy Hollow type woods in the Hudson Valley, but thats even farther away....hmm...maybe that old stell truss bridge over Crabtree Creek just north of Soleil? Hits hidden, but maybe too near Glenwood to be spooky enough, plus it may collapse under the weight of a car. Old US 1 sometimes has abandoned bridges when 4 laning took place...

by the way...this bridge thread is pretty cool...

[JeffC]

....hmm...maybe that old stell truss bridge over Crabtree Creek just north of Soleil? Hits hidden, but maybe too near Glenwood to be spooky enough, plus it may collapse under the weight of a car. Old US 1 sometimes has abandoned bridges when 4 laning took place...

[Jones_]

How do you get to the Crabtree Creek bridge? I've never seen it...

As you take 64 west through Chatham and Randolph Counties you can sometimes see the old road bed off to the right (as you travel west), together with some old bridges...

[JeffC]

64 west is pretty cool...I took it all the way from 85 once just for fun

This bridge is directly off the SE bound Glenwood Ave lanes, at the bottom of the hill before you get to Soleil...so coming down the hill from Oak Park shopping center its on your right a hundred yards or so after the road levels out. There is a chain that keeps cars off it. I have walked under it, but not on it. I cannot imagine how it was used originally as there is no apparant road on the other side of the creek. It looks like a one lane DOT bridge from the 1920's, but my memory is a little foggy now. It could be the old Lead Mine Rd bridge that once crossed Crabtree when it was US 70 or it could be connected to Edwards Mill (the mill itself) somehow. I get the feeling it was moved to its current site from nearby. It is too substantial to have just been a bridge internal to someones farm. I think the N&O had a blurb about it in an article once....or maybe someone asked the road worrier and the road worrier got the wrong bridge and I wrote to correct her (its was Vicki Hyman at the time) man...my memory is crapping out right now...anyway, I got to it via the greenway on a mountan bike a couple of years ago.

[Jones_]

You can see it in google maps when you zoom in. It lines up with one of the entrances into Brookhaven, right? Are there any remnants of Edwards Mill visible anywhere near there or were they obliterated completely by the building of the mall and the buildings formerly on the Soleil site?

BTW, Jones, I thought about you at Applebees across from Meredith College...they have a black and white photo in there of Lassiter's Mill. I'm sure you've seen it before in other sources. Have you ever seen any photos of the actual Edwards Mill?