Not that you would want to stir up ghosts with anything, but these stories have been around for a long time.
It doesn't mean that they're true, just that they have some real stay ing power.
Like ghosts, which supposedly never leave.
For starters, the Maxdale Cemetery is said to be haunted by an old man with a limp, presumably a previous caretaker who just couldn't leave the place alone after he left this world. Also, mysterious lights are said to appear in the cemetery. It is, one local said, the quintessential 'spooky cemetery.'
It is also one of the most historic. Established in the 1860s, it is the final resting place for Bell County pioneers along with veterans of the Civil War, both World Wars and the Korean War.
(As a word to the wise, the cemetery is closed from sunrise to sunup, and a sign at the entrance promises that violators will be prosecuted.)
The bridge, located near the cemetery, is supposedly even more haunted than the cemetery.
One of the stories you hear about this otherwise picturesque 1916 steel truss bridge is that it is haunted by a man who hanged himself when he could not save the life of his girlfriend, who had drowned in the river.
Other stories center around children who are said to have drowned there in a school bus accident.
Also, a phantom truck is believed to suddenly appear on the road to Oakalla - also known as 'The Ozone' - and that phantom truck is said to run people off the road. The truck driver is believed to have committed suicide by driving off the bridge.
That's what people say, anyway.
The stories have been embellished over the years, presumably to see how far people will go to scare themselves. The stories feed on themselves, embellished, layered one upon the other, until you end up in a veritable Bell County Twilight Zone or Sleepy Hollow.
Skeptics are invited to enter the twilight zone themselves, and make their own judgements.
To see the hangman, it is said you have to drive onto the bridge (which you can't do anymore because it's closed to traffic) and turn your headlights off and then back on. Do that and you are supposed to see the man hanging from the noose.
Another version says you will see a woman hanging from the noose.
(Just for the record, we tried it. Nothing.)
Back in the day when you could drive on the bridge, it was said that if you stopped in the middle of the bridge and put the car in neutral that you would hear the cries of the children who died in the school bus accident. Tiny, ghostly hands would then try to push your car across the bridge.
People have put talcum powder on the back of their car and they swear that there were tiny handprints all over the car when they left the bridge.
Maxdale itself is something of a ghost town. The old Baptist church is still there, but most of the old community has given in to time and change. Even at its peak, the official population was listed at 50.
The most recognizable Maxdale address might be that of the Parrie Haynes Youth Ranch, just off FM 2670.
Parrie Haynes, the wife of farmer Allen Haynes, was a woman with her own ideas about things. At a time when most of the area's ranch houses were painted white with black trim, Parrie Haynes went contrary to ordinary and painted her house black with white trim. For years it was known as 'the black house.'
Parrie Haynes was born on Christmas Day, 1837. When she died in 1857, she left 4,400 acres of the 7,700 acre ranch to 'the orphans of Texas.' Texas Parks and Wildlife Department currently maintain the ranch.
On a recent nocturnal visit to Maxdale, a light that could, in a charitable mood, be called 'ghostly' emanated from the cemetery. But a daylight visit the following day revealed a small, possibly solar light situated by one of the graves at about the point where the light had been seen the night before.
The most startling thing to happen was a banging noise, which turned out to be that merry old prankster, the wind, blowing the suspension cables against the bridge. Iron against iron can make quite a racket
No old man with a limp.
No hangmen.
No tiny fingerprints on the back of the car.
No ghostly plaintive, cries for help.
Still, the bridge is a place that, at least at night, makes you anxious to leave.
