Urban Legend: Hells Gate Bridge in Alabama

The Full Story of the Urban Legend for Hells Gate Bridge in Oxford Alabama

Today the bridge is so dilapidated that a ton of signs and fencing have been placed around it. You can't even go near it.

This bridge was first opened in 1917, it was a miracle it ever got finished. You see they began to build it in 1912. They had such a hard time keeping anyone on the crew. They blamed it on the Great War (WWI) but really that wasn't until the year it opened, so that couldn't have been it.

There was a rumor going on around town that Old Man Gillertoy was trying to pay black men under the table but only did so because he secretly knew something wasn't right about that bridge. Some of those men would go missing. It'd happened to at least two other men over the course of working past dusk according to Maisy Atherton.

But that old gossiping witch wouldn't know the actual truth unless it rose up and bit her. Maisy also said that rubbing two pennies together is bad luck unless you whistle it away and if you toast to someone with water you're wishing death upon them.

Some say that was her excuse for wine whenever an event called for such an occasion. So her rattling off at the general store about men going missing on the new bridge mostly fell on deaf ears.

But still, no smoke without fire I suppose.

That was until the 1950s that anybody in town really started talking about that old bridge again. A teenage couple snuck liquor from their parents and went joyriding one night. There was but one witness when they came upon the bridge.

Amon was walking nearby on his way to go night fishing when he recognized that old maroon, Buick. He said he saw them as they slowed down at the heart of the bridge. They came to a stop and the boy turned off his headlights to scare his date.

A common practice in town, get your date a little scared to have her cuddle in closer on the bench seat. Amon shook his head and shuffled his fishing gear on his shoulder as he continue to walk forward.

It wasn’t until he heard the engine rev and skid into the side of the bridge. It broke loose the side and he heard the gut-wrenching sound of a ton of metal hitting the water with a sharp silence of the girl's screams.

It was near 10:45 at night as he ran over. The river was running pretty hard and deep as there was a storm two nights ago, but for the life of him couldn’t see where the car went.

From here the story gets a big forked. Some say both of those teens died, some say neither of them went through the side of the bridge at all, but looked over their shoulders and went mad jumping into the river together to get away from what they saw.

But the version I know is that they found the poor girl and the car about two miles down from the bridge washed and pressed into a bank the back two tires sticking out and found by some local schoolboys.

The boy, however, lived. He’d go muttering around town something was wrong with that bridge too.

You see, he’d tell people he’d looked into the very mouth of Hell.

What does Hell look like you ask?

He said he couldn’t describe it but would shy away and change the subject. But people around town began to treat him like the local looney. And to this day no one remembers what the old name was in 1917 because after that boy told everyone in town you’ll see Hell if you stop, turn out the lights and look over your shoulder, well… Small towns have a way of letting old stories stick.

It wasn’t until the 1980s that as two boys decided to do those very steps. Drive onto the bridge, turn out the headlights after dark and look over their shoulder did something ELSE happen to them.

The girl.

Wet, sallow bloated grey skin, haggled hair, and blank stare sat in their backseat. They both jumped out of the car and ran leaving the car there till morning. As they came back they saw a wet print of something or someone who sat on their backseat leaving a watermark.

Since then folks would drive down to Hells Gate, Turn off the headlights, and not look back hoping to catch the thrill of giving that girl a ride home, and her leaving a wet seat print in their car.

With the bridge now being fully closed and even condemned, we may never try to tempt the fate of that location again.

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