Crybaby Bridge

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There are many bridges in the United States known as Crybaby Bridge. Most are named this because the sound of a baby can be, or has been, heard from the bridge. Most are accompanied by an urban legend of a baby or young child/children being killed nearby, or thrown from the bridge into the river or creek below. Halloween is a popular time for teens to visit crybaby bridges in the hope of observing something otherworldly.

1 Ohio
2 Maryland
- 2.1 Prince George's County
3 Controversy
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Ohio

[edit] Rogue's Hollow

One of the many crybaby bridges is located near Doylestown, Ohio, in an area known as Rogue's Hollow. This bridge is located on Galehouse Road, between Rogue Hollow Road and Hametown Road. The bridge spans Silver Creek. Deep in Rogue's Hollow, this road previously led from the bottom of the hollow (Hametown Rd.) to the top (Rogue Hollow Rd.). The bridge is only approachable from Hametown Rd., as the steeper portion of the road was closed and removed. The bridge is property of the Rogue's Hollow historical society, which also owns the adjacent Chidester Mill.^[1]

Rogue's Hollow Historical Society "Map to the Mill" link refers to the bridge; road and creek are visible in "Chidester Hill" photo.

[edit] The Screaming Bridge of Maud Hughes Road

Maud Hughes Road is located in Liberty Township, Ohio. It has been the site of many terrible accidents and suicides. Railroad tracks lay 25 feet below the bridge, and at least 36 people have been reported dead on or around the Maud Hughes Road Bridge. Ghostly figures, mists, and lights have been seen, as well as black hooded figures and a phantom train. The legend says that a car carrying a man and a woman stalled on top of the bridge. The man got out to get help while the girl stayed. When the man returned, the girl was hanging on the bridge above the tracks. The man then perished with unexplained causes. To this day, many people have reported hearing the ghosts' conversations, then a woman's scream followed by a man's scream. Another story says that a woman once threw her baby off the bridge and then hanged herself afterwards.^[2]^[3]^[4]

Map: 39°23′40″N 84°24′38″W / 39.394551, -84.410427

[edit] Egypt Road, Salem

Although the bridge is off of Egypt Road, it is actually on what used to be West Pine Lake Rd., which now dead-ends to the east of the bridge. Legends attribute the crying baby to one that fell in and accidentally drowned. The closed road remains as an access way to high voltage utility lines.^[1]

The "baby cries" can be heard at night or during the day. The sounds actually come from nearby toads.^{[citation needed]}

Map: 40°55′47″N 80°49′48″W / 40.929744, -80.829978

[edit] Chardon Township

This crybaby bridge is in the area of the melon heads. The bridge is on Wisner Rd. just north of Kirtland Chardon Rd. A large section of the road is permanently closed; the bridge lies just before the south end of the closed section.^[1]

[edit] Maryland

[edit] Prince George's County

There is a purported "Crybaby Bridge" off Beaver Dam road in Beltsville, near the Department of Agriculture's Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. It is in or near the areas where the legendary goatman has reported to have been seen.

There is another on Governor's Bridge Road, near Bowie, at the Anne Arundel County line (Patuxent River). This bridge is a late 19th/early 20th century steel truss bridge, where legend has it that a woman and her baby were murdered in the 1930s. Late at night, it is said that if one parks one's car at or near the bridge, a baby can be heard crying, supposedly even a ghostly car sometimes creeps up from behind but disappears when the driver or passenger turns around to see it.^[5]

[edit] Controversy

In 1999, Maryland folklorist Jesse Glass presented a case against the existence of several Crybaby Bridges as being genuine folklore; instead contending that they were fakelore that was knowingly being propagated through the internet.^[6]

According to Glass, near identical stories of Cry Baby Bridges; said to be located in Maryland and Ohio, began to appear online in 1999, but that the events which they described could not be affirmed as fact or preexisting folklore through either local oral history or the media. Among the concerns presented by Glass was that the story of a particular bridge; said to be located in Wesminister, Maryland, centered around the murder of escaped slaves and African American children, regional newspapers which usually covered racially motivated murders of the period - Specifically the American Sentinel and the Democratic Advocate - made no mention of the events described online.