Ghosthunting Texas. April Slaughter
of Oscar Washburn, an African-American goat farmer who settled with his family on property just north of the bridge not long after it was erected. He was a hard-working and gentle man dedicated to providing a good life and living for his family. It is said that a sign was posted on the bridge that read, “This way to the Goat Man’s.” Being that he was a black goat farmer in the south, his success was not well received by everyone in the community, and members of the Ku Klux Klan were looking to impose their own punishment on Mr. Washburn.
Under cover of night in August 1937, it is alleged that Klansmen forcefully removed Oscar from his home, placed a rope around his neck, and lynched him over the side of the bridge. When the Klansmen went to verify that Oscar was dead, they reportedly found nothing but a dangling rope. His body was nowhere to be found. The Klansmen, in a state of panic, rushed back to the Washburn residence and murdered the remaining family members.
The community suffered a tremendous loss in the tragedy, and rumors quickly began to spread that Oscar’s restless spirit would forever guard the bridge and prevent anyone from crossing whom he felt meant to do others harm. This story has survived into the present day, and many people still believe that Oscar’s anger keeps him tied to the bridge, wandering the area to ensure the safety of others.
This story, however, is not the only reason the span is called the “Goatman’s Bridge.” For decades, people have reported encountering a creature described as being half man, half goat. On more than one occasion, visitors have heard the sound of hooves running the length of the bridge as they walked, feeling as though they were being chased away by the Goatman himself. While no photographic evidence exists to support the claims that this creature exists, there are many who will attest that they have seen and experienced the Goatman while out at the bridge and in the woods that surround it.
It was near dusk on my first excursion to the bridge, and I was not feeling well. When Allen and I arrived, I asked him to go on ahead without me to walk around and told him I would be out to join him in a short while. I was alone in the car for only a couple of minutes when I noticed an orange light flitting about the outside of the windshield. For a brief moment I didn’t think much of it, and suspected it was merely a lightning bug. After a few seconds, however, the light suddenly stretched into a long, strongly illuminated beam that shot straight up into the air and hung there for several seconds before disappearing. The same phenomenon repeated itself twice more in the exact same pattern within the span of a couple of minutes. As it was still fairly light out, I am confident I would have seen a bug or some other source of the light.
As I exited the car, I gathered my things and joined my husband, who was already exploring the bridge. The incident with the beam of light intrigued me so much, and I wanted to share what happened with Allen before he was out of sight exploring the woods.
“I just had the strangest experience,” I said. “I don’t know what it was, but this strange orange beam of light just shot over the car.”
We spoke about the incident briefly before walking the length of the bridge onto the other side of the river with Jerry Bowers, a good friend of ours—and one of the executive board members of The Paranormal Source, Inc. The three of us were standing in a heavily wooded area just beyond the bridge when we heard rustling noises moving behind us in the brush. It was not a windy day, and we hardly took notice of it at first, thinking it could be an animal skulking around close by. We heard the rustling again, but this time in several places at once all around us. When we went to investigate further, we could find no source for the sound.
Later in the evening, after the sun had set, we set up some camping chairs and began to take a few pictures on the bridge. Almost every photograph captured a view of just how many spiders made Old Alton Bridge their home, as it was littered with webs nearly everywhere you looked.
Allen, Jerry, and I sat down to begin recording some audio. Shortly after turning on our recorders, we began talking aloud to see if we could get some sort of response. If the bridge was indeed haunted, maybe whoever was still lurking about might say something to us.
“Is there anyone here that would like to talk to us?” I asked.
Allen and Jerry also took turns asking questions to the air. We were a bit startled when all three of us heard a woman’s voice, seemingly close to us.
“Baby,” she said.
There was no mistaking what she said, or that she had been in close proximity to us. The sound of her voice carried such a weight of sadness with it. We were lucky enough to capture this audio on our video camera.
Old Alton Bridge attracts many paranormal investigators and teams all year round, and many of them have reported their experiences with phenomena in almost every form here. Our good friend Lance Oliver, founder of the Denton Area Paranormal Society (D.A.P.S.), has shown us numerous pictures he and his team have taken at the bridge. Many of the photos show odd anomalies, such as several self-illuminated orbs, inexplicable mists, and rod-shaped lights. D.A.P.S. has also had fairly good luck in capturing EVPs at the bridge.
On a repeat visit of ours one evening, a group of teenagers approached us and asked us what we were doing out at the bridge after dark. Allen explained to them that we were there to investigate paranormal activity and asked them if they were local to the area.
“We live not too far from here,” said one of the young ladies. “We come out here all the time and usually always have something scary happen.”
After a few minutes of chatting with the small group, they left us to our work and headed across the bridge to woods on the other side. Not fifteen minutes or so had passed when the entire group of kids came running back across the bridge.
“What happened?” I asked.
“We were out there in the woods and something came running at us from within the trees,” one of the teens explained. “We could hear it. It must have been big because it made a lot of noise and it sounded like it was running really fast toward us. We didn’t want to see what it was! It scared us so bad!”
And just like that, they were gone. We hadn’t been far from the small group of kids as they went off into the woods and we didn’t hear whatever it was coming at them from the dark.
The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful for us until we decided to turn on a K-II meter to see if we could get any readings on it. A K-II is an EMF (electromagnetic field) meter that registers fluctuations in the energetic environment with a series of colored LED lights. While some use the K-II by holding down the pressure trigger on the front of the device with their thumb, we had ours modified with a switch to ensure that we ourselves were not the cause of a false reading. We began to ask questions, and stated that it would be helpful for whoever wanted to communicate with us to flash the lights on the device twice to indicate a “yes” answer and once to indicate a “no” answer.
“Are you male?” asked Allen.
The lights flashed once.
“Are you female?” he asked.
The lights flashed twice.
We asked these same questions several times, and always received the same answers. If there was indeed a woman speaking with us that night on the bridge, we were unable to determine who she was or why she was there. It is interesting to note that many groups have also reported capturing EVPs of a woman’s voice on Old Alton Bridge. Some have even captured photographs of what they believe to be a smoky apparition of a woman floating across the bridge.
Does a woman’s spirit roam the area looking for her baby? Perhaps the spirit of Mrs. Washburn is searching for the children she once loved and lost. Is there a creature keeping watch over the woods that is half-goat, half-man? Is Mr. Washburn still guarding those who wish to make a safe passage across? All I know for certain is that something or someone is out there at Old Alton Bridge.
CHAPTER 7
The Bull Ring
FORT WORTH