Old bridges just have a kind of creep factor that sends chills down your spine. Maybe, it's because of the way they look, rusty worn out, abandoned, and decayed. Or, maybe it's the things that happened to those on the bridge that gives it a dark, ominous aura. When I think about it, it's probably a little bit of both. I get chills just thing about it.

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Haunted bridges connect Indiana and Illinois

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One such bridge, near Vincennes, Indiana, that connects Indiana and Illinois over the Wabash River, goes by many names but has such an awful past that two of the names are terrifying, The Hangers Bridge and The Purple Head Bridge.

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The bridge is very long at 1,441.0 Feet and connects Francisville: Lawrence County, Illinois, and Knox County, Indiana.

What is the legend of the Purple Head Bridge?

Two legends surround the bridge that involves horrifying deaths and agonizing cries for help.

According to OBSC Urban Legend, the first urban legend involves suicide.

It is said that long ago it was a place where a man jumped from the bridge to hang himself. When he did his head ripped off, and was never found. If you go there on a rainy night and park on the bridge and wait you will see a purple head floating toward you. The other story is the bridge is supposedly a bridge they hung people off of in the 1800s, giving it its name purple head. Another legend has it that if you go out there you will hear screams from the spirits that have been hung.

The other legend dates back to the French and Indian War.

During the bloody years of the French and Indian War, and in the early days of settlement thereafter in the land that only later came to be called Indiana, skirmishes between white settlers and Native Americans were fought continually along the banks of the Wabash, leaving many dead on both sides. And as is the way with war, many a time bodies of those fallen would not receive a proper burial.
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If you make your way out across the bridge and wait near the center of the precipitous drop, the bloated purple head of the lost shaman will appear before you, luminous and pale, begging and pleading to be properly buried and released from his earthly imprisonment.

[OBSC Urban Legend]

Many, many people have reported seeing the blueish, purple head. Read a first-hand account of someone who saw the head while on the bridge., HERE.

The real name of the bridge is Stangle's Bridge, after the farmer who bought it. But, the bridge is also known as the Wabash Cannonball Bridge.

Whatever the name, this bridge is the creepiest. Watch a paranormal investigation of the bridge.

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