Drive through Avon on County Road 625 East and you’ll spot a towering Gothic railroad bridge that locals refuse to visit alone at night. Built in 1906, this 70-foot-high concrete structure has collected more ghost stories than most small towns see in a lifetime. People report hearing strange knocking sounds from inside the arches, moaning echoing through the tunnels, and voices calling out from the darkness. Some drivers claim their engines died right in the middle of the bridge. The haunted bridge stories get passed down through families, each generation adding their own creepy encounter to the pile.
- The bridge was constructed between 1906 and 1907 for the Big Four Railroad, featuring three massive 75-foot arches topped by 24 smaller archways that look like hollow eyes staring down at passing cars.
- At least three different ghost legends explain the hauntings, including a drunk construction worker buried alive in wet cement, a mother who jumped from the bridge with her sick baby, and four workers who fell to their deaths into White Lick Creek.
- The bridge appears on Avon’s official town seal and made Indianapolis Monthly’s list of “50 Things Every Hoosier Must Do,” making it both a local icon and a spot where people test their nerve.
The Architecture That Feeds the Fear
Stand underneath this thing and you’ll understand why people get creeped out. The bridge stretches 305 feet across White Lick Creek, towering 70 feet above the ground. Those hollow rooms inside the support pillars create perfect echo chambers. A DePauw University professor who studied Indiana’s concrete bridges noted that when trains rumble overhead, the sound bounces around inside those spaces, creating reverberations that echo like something alive. That’s probably where a lot of the “ghostly moaning” comes from, but try telling that to someone who’s heard it at 2 a.m. with no train in sight.
The Dead Worker Stories Keep Multiplying in Haunted Bridge Lore
Ask ten people in Avon, Indiana about why the bridge is haunted and you’ll get at least three different stories. The most popular involves a construction worker who showed up drunk to work one night in 1906. He slipped and fell face-first into wet concrete. The crew found him the next morning with his face frozen in the cement that killed him. People say his moans can still be heard when trains pass overhead.
Another version tells about a worker who fell into the framework of a bridge support while it was being built. The railroad bosses decided the guy was already dead, so they sealed him inside the concrete rather than delay construction. Some versions of this story claim his arm was hanging out and they had to cut it off before pouring. There’s even a tale about four workers who fell into White Lick Creek during construction, and locals report hearing splashing sounds when the water sits perfectly still.
The Mother and Baby Legend Hits Different
Here’s the story that really gets under people’s skin. A young mother was walking across the railroad tracks late one night, carrying her sick baby to the doctor’s house. Her foot got caught between the railroad ties. She heard a train coming and struggled to get free. At the last second, she pulled her foot out but had no time to run. She jumped, clutching her baby, trying to land in the creek below. The mother survived. The baby didn’t.
The story goes that grief killed her within a few weeks, and now her screams echo under the bridge at night. This legend spawned a local tradition that’s lasted over a century. When you drive under the bridge, you’re supposed to honk your horn to muffle her cries. Drive through Avon after dark and you’ll hear car horns going off as drivers follow this ritual, whether they believe in ghosts or not.
Nobody Actually Knows Where These Stories Started
Susan Truax, a historian at the Avon-Washington Township Public Library, dug through old records trying to find the origin. Her conclusion? Nobody really knows. The legends are almost as old as the bridge itself, but there’s no clear documentation. An 1908 newspaper article mentioned accidents at a different Big Four Railroad bridge, and that story somehow got attached to the Avon bridge over the years. The details changed with each telling. Names got added. Workers became drunks became victims. When you mix real construction accidents, natural acoustic weirdness from hollow concrete chambers, and over a century of people expecting to hear something spooky, you get a ghost story that won’t die.
The Haunted Bridge Became Part of Avon’s Identity
Whether you think ghosts are real or think people are hearing train echoes, the Haunted Bridge means something to this town. It’s on the official seal. Artists paint it. Photographers shoot it. Teenagers dare each other to walk across it after sunset. One former resident who grew up in nearby Plainfield during the 1980s and ’90s remembered driving out there when the area was less developed. “The road was all gravel and there weren’t all the nearby housing additions then, so it was far spookier than it is now. Those arches along the bridge almost seemed like eyes.”
That’s the thing about places like this. They work on your imagination. The more isolated and old and strange-looking something is, the easier it becomes to believe the stories.
Why People Still Show Up to the Haunted Bridge After Dark
The bridge still carries CSX freight trains every day. You can walk underneath it at Washington Township Park and see those massive concrete arches up close. Whether those echoes sound like moaning or screaming depends entirely on what you’re expecting to hear. Our brains are wired to find patterns in random information, particularly when we’re primed to see something supernatural.
Curious visitors from across the state show up with flashlights and recording equipment, hoping to capture something unexplainable. The thrill-seekers are looking for that rush you get from being scared in a controlled environment. Real danger at the bridge comes from the trains, not the ghosts. It’s an active railroad crossing, and freight trains don’t stop for pedestrians standing on the tracks trying to commune with spirits.
Whether you leave believing in ghosts depends partly on what you brought with you. Skeptics will hear natural sounds and see ordinary shadows. Believers will find proof of the supernatural in every echo and chill. Both groups will probably honk their horns when they drive under, because that tradition is bigger than belief at this point. It’s what you do at the Haunted Bridge in Avon, Indiana.
Sarah Johnson