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Legend-Tripping at the Old Richardsville Road Bridge Abby

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Legend-Tripping at the Old Richardsville Road Bridge Abby Legend-Tripping at the Old Richardsville Road Bridge Abby Zibart FLK 276 Dr. Ann Ferrell November 28, 2013 FA 780 Manuscripts & Folklife Archives – Library Special Collections – Western Kentucky University 1 Bill Ellis is one of the most prominent folklorists who have published work on legend- trips. Most people are probably familiar with legend-tripping even though they may not realize it. Just about every community around the country has a legend-trip. Teenagers spread legends amongst their peers concerning a particular local site that is usually considered off-limits by adults, and go out to the site to test these legends (Sims et al. 2011). However, there exist as many variations of the legend as people circulating them; thus, making it folklore. There are three general narrative categories of these legends: people dying in violent situations or accidents, haunted gravesites, and those that feature uncanny persons or creatures that are often supernatural. The most basic aspect is that there must be a legend in order for a legend-trip to exist. The average age of legend-trip participants is sixteen to eighteen years of age, or “cruising age.” With this age range in mind, the connections to coming of age or rites of passage are easy to see. Ages sixteen to eighteen is when many teenagers get their driver’s license and first cars. With this, comes a great deal of freedom and mobility. A central aspect to legend-trips is automobiles. The car may provide protection from the paranormal; a mode of escape or refuge during a legend-trip that becomes all too real. There is also some anxiety about the safety of the car. The supernatural may be able to interact physically with the car, which threatens the safety of the participants (Ellis 1983). “Legend-trip in general is a way of playing chicken with adolescent anxieties” (Ellis 1983). The element of risk and fear add to the excitement and enjoyment of the legend-trip, as well as the achieved status of being a survivor of the trip (Sims et al. 2011). Legend-trips “allow adolescents to experience the emotions of being in death’s presence and the exhilaration of having conquered their fears without adult assistance” (Ellis 1983). FA 780 Manuscripts & Folklife Archives – Library Special Collections – Western Kentucky University Elizabeth Bird is another name that is mentioned in discussions of legend-tripping. She published a study concerning the Black Angel in Iowa City, but in that publication she made several strong points about legend-tripping in general. While there are many different versions of local legends, or oikotypes, they are usually always variations of widespread generic legend types. Legends often spawn from specific locations, for example, a bridge. Edmund Leach was quoted by Bird stating that “if a story becomes ‘embedded’ in features of the landscape, story and place are mutually supportive” (Bird 1994). A central aspect to legends in general is the questioning of truth. With these legend-trips, there is often ambiguity regarding questions that have no apparent answer. This ambiguity keeps the legend alive with excitement and thrill (Bird 1994). Gary Hall stated that legend-trip participants will “willingly suspend disbelief in super- natural haunts and other horrors” to make the event more exciting (Ellis 1981). She adds that it is often not until arrival at the site of the legend that the stories are told, which usually builds fear in the participants right before they go through with the performance of the legend-trip. Bird states that “the emotional power of the experience derives from a combination of setting, narratives, and actions, all of which are interdependent” (Bird 1994). A popular legend-trip in the Bowling Green, Kentucky area is that of the Old Richardsville Road Bridge. Just outside Bowling Green, down Old Richardsville Road, you will find a very old, very isolated bridge. Old Richardsville Road is a narrow road covered by overhanging trees. Built in 1889, it is a three span bowstring through truss design over the Barren River. It has metal trusses and a wooden deck. It is still open to traffic, but only services an estimated 165 people per day, as of 2006. When a car is driven across the bridge, a squealing or moaning of the bridge occurs as a result of the metal and wooden structure. The narrow road with overhanging trees in a rural area and the moaning and creaking of the bridge combine to FA 780 Manuscripts & Folklife Archives – Library Special Collections – Western Kentucky University 3 create a very creepy area. Perhaps this is one reason it has been an element of many local legends ("Old Richardsville Road Bridge" 18 05, 2013). There are many legends offered as explanations of why the Old Richardsville Road Bridge is haunted, what process is supposed to be enacted when participants go there, and what is supposed to happen to the participant. These versions, sadly, are usually not documented or archived but rather spread verbally through peer communities of adolescents. I have personally heard a few different versions, and one person I interviewed for this project has informed me of another version I have never heard. This legend-trip has even been conducted by the local news station, WBKO, and aired on local television. One legend I have heard is that a young woman found out that she was pregnant. The thought of pregnancy was too much for her to handle, and she committed suicide on the bridge by driving off of it. For some reason, this spirit now wants to save others from dying on the bridge. She pushes the car to the other side of the bridge. Another version I have heard is that there was once a terrible wreck on the bridge that resulted in a fatality. The person who died on this bridge wants to save others from the same fate, so they safely push the car to the other side of the bridge. The final version that I have personally heard did not involve a car at all. A woman committed suicide from jumping off of the bridge. Within this same version, there are different reasons as to why she committed suicide. I have heard that she jumped because she found out she was pregnant, or because she was depressed for unknown reasons. She is also believed to push vehicles across the bridge to the other side. There are some who say that the windows of the car should be rolled down or else the spirit will push you off the bridge into the water, while some say precisely the opposite. Some include putting baby powder or flour on the bumper of the car in order to see the spirit’s handprints from pushing the car. Windows up or down, baby powder or not, the main process is getting on the bridge and shifting FA 780 Manuscripts & Folklife Archives – Library Special Collections – Western Kentucky University the car into neutral. The spirit, for whatever reason, is supposed to push the car. It may be only a short distance, or it could be the entire 422.8 feet of the bridge ("Old Richardsville Road Bridge" 18 05, 2013). From the versions I have heard alone, it is easy to identify the questionable truth factor that is essential to legends. I interviewed a Western Kentucky University student, Ellyn, as well as an employee at WKU library, Jack. Jack is originally from South Carolina. I was fortunate in my background research to have found a newspaper article written and published by Jack about his experience at the bridge. He states in his article “According to an unsubstantiated legend, a ghost phenomenon stems from an alleged suicide by a young woman who found herself pregnant and unmarried. Her ghost is said to haunt the bridge and will push cars left in neutral across the bridge” (Montgomery 2011). I have known Ellyn since elementary school. She told a version of the legend in her interview that I have never heard. She said that “the legend started that a small child was playing on the bridge and a large vehicle, maybe a truck or tractor, came through the bridge, did not see her and ran her over, basically, and she fell off the bridge and into the river below. If you go there at night and you park your car in the middle of the bridge and put your car in neutral that she will push your car off the bridge, not off into the river, but back onto steady ground.” Jack did not name where he heard this version, but Ellyn said that she heard this version from the friends she went with, who she met in college. Ellyn also reported in her interview that she was not really told a legend until they got on-site at the bridge. This supports Bird’s aforementioned claim. Ellyn recounted in the interview that she went “because we were just bored, and this was… a stop on a ‘let’s go visit creepy places in Bowling Green’ night.” Jack stated that his FA 780 Manuscripts & Folklife Archives – Library Special Collections – Western Kentucky University 5 reason for going on the legend-trip was because they were “asked on several occasions to write an article for Halloween…about a local haunted spot.” Quite naturally, after hearing the stories and conducting these interviews, I wanted to try this legend-trip for myself. I had heard stories about this bridge throughout high school, and I finally had this project as motivation to go. On the night of November 23, 2013, I went to the bridge with a close friend around 8 or 9 o’clock.
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