Off the road to Denton, there’s a bridge that connects a small gravel lot to a thick gray forest, straddling a shallow, muddy creek. 

“There’s a little gravel parking lot past the entrance. You reach a fork in the road,” a former Marcus student said. “To the left is a long trail deeper into the woods.”

At night, the air around the old Alton Bridge is thick with the earthy scent of damp leaves. It emerges from the darkened woods, brown and rusty, cracking with the weight of years.

The bridge is flanked on either end by misshapen trees growing in every direction. Every step reverberates and ripples down into the emptiness below, where the Hickory Creek runs black and silent.

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Constructed in 1884, Old Alton Bridge, commonly known as Goatman’s Bridge, has become a point of interest for people in our community and in the wider supernatural world.

The bridge has become a central landmark of Denton, but the story which inspires its fame carries a darker streak than just a half-goat man.

Oscar Washburn was a peaceful African-American goat farmer who lived near the bridge, accordingly dubbed “The Goatman” due to his great success.

In the 1930s, however, his prosperity and a sign that read “This Way to the Goatman” caught the attention of the local Ku Klux Klan.

One night, they invaded his house, took him to the bridge, and hanged him above the bridge’s side. But as they peered over, his body was gone into the dark creek beneath. From that day forward his spirit— a half-man, half-goat creature— haunts the bridge, enacting vengeance on anyone who dares cross.

People have allegedly felt chills and unexplained sensations on the bridge. Rumors say that the goat-man will throw you off the bridge if you knock on the railing three times. Some have even claimed to see strange people conducting rituals in the woods.

In modern times, though, it seems like that the legend is starting to fall more and more into obscurity.

With the rise of the internet, local culture like the story of Old Alton has begun to fall out of favor, with each generation seemingly having less of an interest in these local ghost stories.

Whether people care about the stories or not, Goatman’s Bridge will remain in those woods for those still interested in the supernatural.