The Goatman of Old Alton Bridge - The Urban Legend of Denton County, Texas | True Paranormal Stories & Spooky Folklore | Ep #48

0:02 That's a lot of goat men. What do you call? A group of goat men, anyway. Welcome stranger, to Madam Strange Ways, where I, Madam Strange Ways, narrate your true strange stories. Of the unexplained. Whether you're a skeptic, A believer, or some secret third thing, stick around after the story where I share my strange thoughts and research about said strange story. And along the way, I will drag you down a slew of strange rabbit holes, kicking and screaming if needs must before we get to today's true strange story.

0:46 The strangest of shout outs to my Patreon patrons, TJ Hotter of the tapes of trepidation podcast, G Man music Ted, Keith and Tori, thank you so much to my Feral Fiendish 5 for supporting the show. You can hear your name at the beginning of every episode. You can also get a free sticker and you can get bonus Madam Strange Notes episode just for joining the Patreon at patreon.com/madam. Strange ways. Oh wow, did you hear that sound of extremely realistic Thunder? Sounds like it's about to rain hellcats and hellhounds out there. So you know what that means. Time for a true strange story here on Madam's Changeways. My Night on the Old Elton Bridge by Kai Faden A few years ago I decided to return to my home state of Oklahoma for my birthday and celebrate the weekend with my best friend Wes and my family.

2:08 I was pretty excited as I hadn't seen any of them for the past few years and we had some fun stuff planned. Matching tattoos with Wes, a BBQ with the family. Just a nice fun weekend, but the real excitement for me was a small road trip Wes and I had planned, taking us to Texas to visit the old Alton Bridge. Now you've probably heard of this place before. It's been subject to a lot of paranormal investigation type media due to the satanic rituals performed on the bridge and of course the ever famous goat man demon. I, being a lover of the occult, always wanted to make trips to see more places with paranormal backgrounds and with the old Alton Bridge being a mere 5 hour drive from my hometown, it seemed like a blast.

2:59 And Wes, also a lover of spooky stuff, was down to go. So the plan was set months in advance. The day finally came. I flew down the night before Wes got me from the airport and we went back to his place to crash. We woke up. Hit the gym, got those matching tattoos, and hopped in the car for the road trip. The five hour drive flew by as we spent the trip listening to podcasts and catching up. We ended up reaching the old Alton Bridge at around 10 PMA. Nice dark September night. You couldn't have asked for a better time of year for this kind of adventure. Wes and I invited a couple of other friends to come hang out with us.

3:40 One said he was at work so he would be running a little late, while the other, knowing full well the history of the bridge as well as being a tad superstitious, point blank refused to meet us there. This is probably as good a time as any to point out that Wes and I aren't actually believers in the idea that paranormal things can actually hurt you. Some have since argued with us that maybe if we were and opted to be a bit more careful, the night wouldn't have ended the way. That it did. Wes and I had decided to film some fun stuff for social media, seeing as how we had some time to kill while waiting for Scraggy, our other best friend, to get off from work.

4:23 Wes had already brought along a professional grade movie camera since we had already been talking about ideas we had for content. In the midst of all of this, two things were done by Wes and I that, if you believe in these sorts of things, might have set the tone for things to come. I took a railroad spike and stabbed it into the bridge for a sort of cool picture for Instagram and Wes. Needing to use the bathroom and having nowhere else to go, we decided to pee off the side of the bridge. After a few hours, Scraggy showed up and we all hung out together on the bridge for about an hour before we decided to pack it all up and go home. This worked out well, as the bridge was starting to get a lot of tourists coming around as the night went on. This was unsurprising as it was peak spooky season right before Halloween, but we're not exactly the most extroverted bunch. We said goodbye to Scraggy, packed up the car, and got on the road to head home.

5:25 It was pretty late at this point, so we did pull over and nap for a few hours just to take the edge off before returning to the road. We were a little under halfway back home listening to a horror narration podcast when all of the sudden we heard a loud crash and violently lurched forward out of control. Wes and I were screaming as he desperately tried to regain control of the car, which was still flying at high speed off the highway. We were only stopped after scraping alongside a median barrier for several yards. Somehow, miraculously, we were relatively unharmed, just a bit of whiplash and a throbbing headache for Wes from the airbag.

6:11 We got out of the car and unsurprisingly, it was totaled. Half of the back of the car was completely caved in. Someone pulled over next to us to make sure we were all right. That's when they explained to us what happened. A car behind us was swerving on the highway and driving recklessly. They slowed down to let the car pass them to avoid a potential wreck. We never noticed how the car was driving in the rearview mirror and the words of the other driver. It looked like they. Speed up to pass you and just didn't pass you. The car had rammed into us from behind and ran us off the road across the street.

6:55 The car that had hit us was also totaled. Tracks following the path of the car had showed that it had spun out multiple times before coming to a. Stop. The front of the car was on fire and the driver was still in the driver's seat. He was seemingly. Fine, but still trying to get his currently ablaze vehicle started. Finally, after realizing it was of little use, he got out of the car and paced up and down the highway. His. Car eventually went up in a full blaze. I'm talking bonfire levels. I've never seen a vehicle burn like that and it honestly felt unnatural. Wes and I sat there watching the flames, and I said the only thing that came to mind.

7:39 Hey Wes. Yeah, I think we picked a bad night to piss off the goat man, huh? Despite the situation, we both laughed. The cops and an ambulance arrived. We were OK, so they offered to drop us at a nearby gas station to get picked up by Wes's wife. The guy who hit us was arrested. According to the cops who talked to us, he flat out refused to take a drug test for them, but his eyes were quote UN quote as big as saucers. Also the car he was driving stolen. We made it home OK and even managed to get the camera out of the car, which shockingly was also unscathed. However, the last little.

8:25 Oddity of it was that all of the footage that we recorded on the bridge was completely corrupted. I can't deny that there were an insane amount of creepy coincidences that happened that night. I still don't believe that the things that happened to us that day are the result of the goat man or anything doing with the bridge. I still don't believe that paranormal things can hurt you, but a lot of the people who I share this story with and some of the more peculiar details with usually think otherwise.

9:09 Hi, thank you so much for submitting your story to madamstrangeways@gmail.com. Shameless plug. But hey, while we're shamelessly plugging, check out Kais Horror narration YouTube channel at Poulter Kaist Kaist instead of Poulter Geist POLTERKAIST. And if you're interested in horror narration or, or horror fiction, I have also done some collaborations with Kai on his channel on certain episodes. So check it out. But Kai, thank you so much for submitting your story. Firstly, gosh, I'm so glad that y'all were safe. That could have ended so badly. Like, you know, it's so scary to think, what if you had left 5 seconds earlier, 30 seconds earlier?

9:51 What if you had left 5 seconds later? You know what, what then what could things have what, what things could have changed? It's just so scary to think about. I do always love to hear stories from skeptics or at least like skeptic adjacent people because you just know that if they're submitting a story that it's stuck with them. Like something about that story just doesn't sit right. Even if they don't necessarily believe in the paranormal. Those are my favorite stories to hear is. You know, oh, I consider myself a skeptic. You're like, I'm SAT like, oh, no, what happened to you? Oh no. OK, so here's what we're going to do with this episode is we're going to discuss the urban legend of the Goat Man, specifically at the Old Alton Bridge.

10:39 And here's what I want you to do. When you tell me, you tell me, you say it out loud. You can just think it. You can subconsciously, telepathically, etcetera. To me, when you hear the term goat man, what are you picturing? Are you picturing like a creature resembling like a like a like a goat human hybrid? Is that is that what you're picturing sort of like, you know, half man, probably man from the waist up. OK, but I will also accept goat from the waist up. And then human bottom. Half. I will accept that as well, but are you? Picturing most likely human man waist up and then goat waist down like a Seder, you know, like pan, is that what you're picturing?

11:35 Or like, you know, classic satanic imagery, Is that what you're picturing? Because that's what I was picturing. And if this story was set in the probably hundreds of other towns in every state in America. Because my research is showing me that there are so many. Goat men all over the place. So if this story was set literally anywhere else in America, you would be right. That's what we would be talking about a a 1/2 man half goat hybrid creature. Although now I'm you know, I'm curious if. Any of the goat men in the rest of the country or anywhere in the world have a human bottom half and a goat top half? Let me know Madam strangeways@gmail.com Are you a goat man?

12:20 I want to hear from you Madam strangeways@gmail.com. Let me know, we'll have you on the show. But this goat man in this story is is not that at all. It's just crazy to me. This is not what I was expecting from the story. I was expecting cut and dry goat man Cryptid crypted adjacent. Urban. Legend. That's what I was picturing. But no, because it's Texas, so of course it's not going to be normal. It's going to be bad. And I was. Listen, I was, I was born and raised in Texas. So I am allowed to be disappointed in my state. OK I'm allowed.

13:00 But before we get into what I'm talking about, first we will discuss the folklore and the urban legend itself around the old Elton Bridge. And also along the way we'll just see exactly how urban legends and honestly folklore at this point can change and morph so quickly, especially in the age of social media and and a post 2010 Internet. I feel like 2010 is a is a pretty good. I've just made that up. I don't know, is there studies on this? I feel like 2010 things started to change pretty drastically pretty quickly. But prior to 2010, the Internet was kind of like. I don't know. It was different. It was a different place. It was like the web, you know, and now it's the Internet. So Speaking of the Internet, we're going to start with Wikipedia.

13:43 So the old Alton Bridge located in Copper Canyon in Denton County, Texas. Here we go. Locally the bridge is known as Goat Man's Bridge as it is said to be haunted by 1/2 man half goat figure called Goat Man. So you think just? Wait, the belief. Is based on the legend of a black goat farmer. Oh. This is where I go. Oh no. Named Oscar Washburn, who was said to have moved his family to a residence just north of the bridge a few years later, Washburn having become known as a dependable and honest businessman and dubbed the Goat Man by locals. Hence the goat man displayed. A sign on Alton Bridge reading this way to the Goat Man.

14:27 But the success of a black man was still unwelcome to many and in August 1938 Klansmen and the local government crossed the bridge and kidnapped Washburn from his family. Yeah, see, do you see what I'm saying? I was like, Oh no, like this is not where I thought this was going. They hung. A noose on Old Alton Bridge and after securing it around his neck threw him over the side. All because he was a a successful black man, which is crazy. When they looked down to see if he had died, the noose was empty. In a. Panic. They returned to his family home and slaughtered his wife and children.

15:09 I don't understand. What do you mean? You know what I'm saying? Say like, I guess maybe they thought he escaped. Maybe that's the panic they thought he escaped. And. So that was, I don't know what what I mean. You know what? I'm never going to be able to put myself. In the shoes of the KKK to figure out what's going on in their mind. So I guess there's not even any point in trying but like. Even like, say they thought that Oh my God, he's got some sort of like supernatural evil power. Like if they're thinking, oh, this is witchcraft, this is, you know, perhaps voodoo is maybe what they're thinking. But then if you think that there's like witchcraft or voodoo afoot, why would you then go and murder his whole family? Because now you're going to be in more trouble. Like you were in trouble before, right? But then like, now you're in super trouble. I just don't understand.

16:02 I don't. I don't get this at all. But like I said, there's a. Reason. I'm not going to get it anyway. Locals warn that if you cross the bridge at night without headlights, as the Klansmen are said to have done. Like in. Their Klansmen car, which I assume works like a clown car. You will be. Met on the other side. By the Goat Man Ghostly figures in strange lights are said to appear in the surrounding woods, as well as reports of visitors being touched, grabbed, and having rocks thrown at them. This legend results in the area around Old Elton Bridge being popular among paranormal investigators, such as the cruise from Ghost Adventures and BuzzFeed Unsolved Supernatural. I have less than no interest in whatever those two shows have said about the show, so about this urban legend.

16:49 So I have no idea what they've said, what they found. Don't know, not going to look, not interested. So if you know I would be. Interested to hear after you listen to this episode, how much of their of the overlap was there? How much overlap was there? Good God, and words are hard sometimes people. All right, So first of all, there's it's just not what hold on. Like what do you mean? What do you mean? Because we start out saying it's said to be haunted by 1/2 man, half goat figure called the goat man. But then we find out that the goat man was just a black. Guy who was killed by the KKK or not killed if he disappeared. From the noose.

17:30 You know. I'm attempted murder at A at a minimum, there was an attempted murder. So how did he turn into a half man, half goat figure? What do you mean? What do you mean? And then also why is the goat man the bad guy? Why is the goat man the one that's that's like haunting people there and like touching them, grabbing them and throwing rocks at them? Or like there's other versions of the story that we'll get into where like you can see his glowing eyes at night. Why is Why are his eyes glowing? He's a victim. That guy didn't do anything. Oscar Washburn, he did the goat man. He didn't do anything. So what are the odds that someone that sells goats is going to in death come back as 1/2 man, half guy? I don't know like.

18:15 So you had the name goat Man before you turned into a goat. Like I don't, I don't, I'm not following. I'm not following. But also, I do also hate that the the goat man is now the bad guy. But like I said, he's a victim. Why is he why is he the bad guy? Because we're in Texas, That's why. All right, moving on, we're going to start with something from the Denton Public Library. Also, by the way, pause. So like I said, this is in Denton County, but technically it's located in Copper Canyon. Denton County is about an hour away from Dallas, maybe like 45 minutes. It just depends on where you are in Dallas, but it's pretty close to Dallas. Denton's very like eclectic and weirding and cool. And there's actually this guy, I don't know if he still does it, but in my research I found pictures of someone that dresses up like with the cool like stilts that look like goat legs, and he dresses up and he looks like the goat man and he goes on the bridge.

19:06 I don't know how often he does it, but. If you have heard. Someone that went to the bridge, they might have seen just this guy who's dressed up as the goat man. It's. Possible. I don't know. But here is an excerpt from an article on the Denton Public Library website where they're talking about, like, is this story true? Like, did Oscar Washburn ever exist? Like, da, da, da, da, da. So I'm just going to read it. So they say. I have searched. Local historians have searched and paranormal investigators and even reporters have tried to verify the existence of Oscar Washburn, who is, reminder, the goat man. We have found that there was a man named Oscar Washburn who married in Denton County, but he was white and the family moved very quickly to Young County.

19:49 So obviously he wasn't murdered there. And he maybe, maybe he had goats, I don't know. Unclear. Researchers have combed through the August 1938 issue of the Denton Record Chronicle seeking any mention of the incident at the Alton Bridge to no avail. Granted, news about African American citizens was not often reported in the local papers, but bad news or sensational items like this were more likely to make mention. We all know the Internet has changed many facets of our lives. This is one example of its impact. It has changed the nature of our urban legends. What was once told in the oral tradition and accepted as just a story can now be morphed into fact once it's put into print. One can find the story of Mr.

20:32 Washburn perpetuated in many places without the simple statement legend tells of a preceding it. That statement or one similar maintains the tale as folklore and not presented as historical fact. And that is exactly what I have found in my research is that this is just so interesting because I have not yet researched urban legends specifically for the show yet. I love urban legends. I love them so much. I just have not gone down many rabbit holes about them. Somehow some strange miracle I haven't O going down it. There's so many versions of this story and everybody and their grandmother has a version of it that's a little bit different from the last one. But I just wanted to, I wanted to open with that so that you can understand there may not have actually been a person named Oscar Washburn.

21:23 You know, we can't verify if there was. But of course, that doesn't change the fact that lots of black people were lynched and murdered at the hands of the KKK. So that part of the story is absolutely, unequivocably true. It's just a matter of whether this specific character in the specific story ever existed. And I don't think it really matters if he did. But again I. Do have a problem? With him being turned into a monster, he's villainized. It should be that bridge should be haunted by Ku Klux Klan members. Not a man who was murdered. And then turned into, OK, I'm going to stop.

22:04 But you're getting what I'm saying, right? But kind of on that topic, the website wedentondoit.com, I think it's like a joke on like we didn't do it, but it's Denton. We Denton do it. I don't know. Anyway, on that site they had some interesting comments as well. So one thing said the ghostly goat man only spirits away those with the bloodlines of Klansmen or slave owners into the woods for his terrible revenge. So if you go to the bridge, you know, you do the like lights off with your car, you go onto the bridge. Some of the rules are like you have to flash your lights or some of it's like you have to honk 3 times. Some of it's like you have to do it on Halloween, you know, whatever. But the point is, this version of the story says that if you have blood in your veins related to the Klansman who did this to him. Then he will get his revenge on you, but if you don't, you're safe.

22:59 Now, I thought it was really interesting that apparently, and this is also from that site, we didn't doit.com. There is also another variation that predates the bridge itself and this account that may go back as far as the 1860s Texas troubles. Some Copper Canyon Cowboys lynched a Creole slave goat herder named I feel like I said that sentence word, we're going to start over. Some Copper Canyon Cowboys lynched a Creole slave goat herder named Jack Kindle from a tall Creekside tree near where the bridge now stands. But ineptitude separated the runaway slave's head from his body, which is so fucked. UI mean the whole. Thing is fucked, U OK? The slavers then watched in horror as the headless body raised itself from the Creek bed mud.

23:45 Animated by voodoo. Of course it's voodoo. He seemed like come on and ripped off the head of a nearby goat to replace his own, still dangling on the noose. OK OK you see again we're villainizing. We're villainizing the victim here again, which is just so sick. But also, I want to make sure that everybody understands when it says Creole slave, I mean, we're basically just talking about another black man who was. Murdered and then turned into the goat man. But again, he's the. Monster, not the Copper Canyon Cowboys. And I think we can probably maybe what we would call them Cowboys.

24:28 I think Cowboys, I guess. Can you be a cowboy? I don't think I don't think you could be a cowboy and also commit atrocities. I feel like the cowboy code is what is it. It's like be rootin, be tootin and by. God be kind. What is it? Come on, hold on. I got to look this up. OK, I was really close. Be rootin, be tootin and by God be shooting. But most of all, be. Kind you see it often. With like a little. Picture of a. Possum wearing a little cowboy hat. I don't know where this came from, but this is what I'm saying. This is now the cowboy creed and let me tell you what a little possum cowboy is not going to do is murder a man, let alone accidentally decapitate a man especially. Not for the.

25:17 Color of his skin so. You know, are they Cowboys or were they Ku Klux Klan members? Well, I've got answers. For you actually. Because according to NBCDFW, research has also uncovered details of Ku Klux Klan activity in Denton County during the 1920s. And then after I was looking at that page, I discovered this amazing multi part podcast series all about the old Elton Bridge and the Goat man. And it is absolutely packed with facts and history. And if you're even remotely interested in this topic, please check this guy's show out. It's called Buried Secrets Podcast. And he has like, I mean, I don't know.

25:57 I mean, like it's at least 5 episodes. It's probably 6 episodes specifically on this topic. I could have totally listened to that entire series and actually just used all of his research. But I don't do things the easy way, you know, I sure don't. But here is what I will share with you is he shares in his research that Denton even had its own chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. So Dallas had a chapter, Fort Worth had a chapter, I think, I think Denton's came later. But they had a KKK chapter, which you know, OK, well not great, not great. But again, look at where we are. So allegedly by the mid 1920's the Klan had between 3:00 and 8:00 million members, which is a really pick. What do you mean?

26:45 You know, like minimally 3,000,000 but at Max 8 million members. That just feels like a really big jump, but I guess you know. They're not going to. They're hiding under bed sheets, right? They don't want. You to see their faces. So I guess it is kind of hard to. Count. Anyway, I'm not sure what those numbers would look like in 1938 because that's when this story supposedly happened. But in the 20s, it wasn't good because I will say Texas had more racial lynchings than any other state in 1922, according to the research from the podcast Buried Secrets. So it's not looking great. It's not looking great. So to quote Buried Secrets, who quoted Micah Crittenden's thesis on the subject of racial violence in Denton, TX Specifically, despite the best efforts of white supremacist sympathizers at Containment, the truth leaks out through folklore stories like that of the Goat Man's signal to a violent past without direct indictment of the participants. I mean, I think it's.

27:51 Pretty clear that that's kind of what we're seeing here with the Goat Man story is that it feels like Goat Man. Who is kind? Of all over the place and pretty famous seems to have been kind of Co opted to tell this story, although again, I really can't stress it up how much I hate that the goat. Man is not the villain, although I guess if he's. Exacting revenge on Klansmen descendants. I feel like I'll allow it, but I don't love it. All right, I probably. Should have opened with this, but you know what, we're just going to go with that. I want to talk a little bit about the bridge itself, The bridge. The bridge also, it's funny because we're talking about what is basically seems like a Cryptid slash ghost, but more Cryptid. And then you got Mothman, and Mothman is also associated with the bridge.

28:38 And then there's. So many goatmen at so many other bridges. What is it with bridges? Is it the liminal sort of like between two spaces thing? Like what is it with bridges? Bridges. It's so interesting to me. All right, so the bridge itself, the old Alton Bridge, was built in 1884 by the King Iron Bridge Manufacturing Company. OK, keep, stay awake. All right, I. Don't want to hear any. Snoring. Stay awake, Give Me a Minute. And originally carried horses and later automobiles over Hickory Creek at a location that was once a popular Ford for crossing cattle. Like in the Oregon Trail. The bridge takes its name from the abandoned community of Alton, which between 1850 and 1856 was the seat of Denton County. This bridge is the subject of several Ghost War. Stories.

29:25 Featuring a vengeful ghost. That's interesting. The heavily travelled Old Alton Bridge remained in constant use until 2001, when vehicle traffic was moved to an adjacent concrete and steel bridge prior to the new bridge. This is the part that I was like what? Prior to the new bridge. It was necessary for motorists to signal with a car horn before crossing the single lane span, so to to get. Over it you had to be. Like beep beep Hong Hong, hello, I'm going to be crossing. It's a one way bridge. Don't run into me please. Or I don't know. That's crazy to think about. But also it then isn't that part of the rule? Is that like, oh, if you honk twice, if you honk when you go over the bridge, like is, is that interesting?

30:06 Doesn't it feel like things are just being conflated into the rules and the urban legend and the folklore put a pen in that. So I wanted to see like, what were people talking about regarding this story prior to now? Like what were they talking about as far back as I can go on the Internet? That's what I wanted to know. So I found this unexplained-mysteries.com forums in 2006 and so there's some pretty good comments that I want to share. So one says the legend is that there was a lot of Satan worshipping there because of course. Of course there was. The legend is that. There was a lot of Satan worshipping there and they managed to conjure up a half goat half man type entity called Goat Man.

30:46 First of all, Satan worshippers. Satanists. Are way more creative. Satanists as a whole are way more creative and wouldn't just call a goat man goat man first of all. Anyway, back to the comment they say. Supposedly if you squint your eyes you can see goat man OK, Like just. If I just squint my eyes. All right, this is what people are saying. In 2000. Six. I've also heard that if you turn your lights off and honk 3 times, goat man will appear. Do you have to squint? We're having to appear after you've honked 3 times and turn off the lights. Or is the squinting not necessary? It doesn't specify. OK, they wrap up with I didn't find out about this until after I got home so next time I'll go try it. Well they didn't come back and tell us so either. The goat man got them, they got gutted. By the goat man because their great grandfather was in the KKK or.

31:41 I don't know, they just never tried it. But then someone else comments on that comment to correct them. Because this is how urban legends work, right? So here's what they say in the. Late. 1800s Denton was quite small and Argyle where Goatman's bridge is, which apparently the bridge is also This is me. This is Madam talking. Apparently the bridge is also occasionally referred to as the Argyle Bridge and not just the Alton Bridge, so just FYI. Let's see. In the late 1800s, Denton was quite small and Argyle barely existed. There was a man that lived out that way who owned several goats and that was how he supported himself. Many of the merchants in Denton thought that this old man to be very odd. This guy was a loner and no one knew much about him. Many of the older people in Denton knew this guy and remembered that his wife died mysteriously. A few of the men in Denton got drunk and started riding around the area.

32:36 I guess that's just what you did back then, I guess. That's just how you entertained yourself as you just get drunk and ride around looking for trouble so. They found the old loner herding his goats late at night. Which how often is that happening? Is that a common practice? Goat herding at night? Aren't the goats? I feel like goats. Aren't nocturnal? Let me know, do you know? Madam Strange Ways at Gmail. Dot com Are goats nocturnal? Anyway, then they drove the old man and his goats off the bridge. Why? Because his wife died mysteriously. What do you mean? What's mysteriously? Back then, in the late 1800s, people were dying for so many reasons, so many reasons. In the 1800s, in the 1800s, were we still calling cancer a wasting disease?

33:25 You know, I feel like what? What? Do you mean mysterious? Anyway, when the sheriff found out about this, he investigated and could no longer find the old man or his goats. Weird. Weeks later, after an event in the city, a family was crossing the bridge and their wagon again. We're in wagon times. How mysterious? How? How mysterious can deaths be? You're you're riding a wagon. You're you're dying from a paper cup. You know what I'm saying? What do you mean mysterious? OK, anyway, I'm going to. We're going to continue, let's see, weeks later after. An event in the city, A family was crossing the bridge in their wagon and could hear odd noises from underneath the bridge.

34:08 After they crossed the bridge, they looked back and saw the man staring at them, holding the heads of goats, one under each arm. Well now why would he do that to his own goats? How high was the bridge? Is it you? Know what I'm saying? I have. Questions. OK after they crossed the bridge, they look back and I want to reach them now. The stories are that you can hear the sounds of hooves on the bridge and splashes in the water, and some people say they saw the man, but his head was a goat's head. Again, why is it a goat's head though? Just because you just because you heard goats you're going to turn into a goat and death. I've questions they say I've been to this bridge many times and scared countless freshmen. OK, so you can see really like this is what people did with this urban legend back in the day, but I've never seen the man.

35:00 I do admit that the bridge is an unnerving at night and I have heard the splashes and heard weird sounds while standing on the bridge. I've also heard it's a place Satanists hang out because of course, but they finish with. It's. Definitely a good place to take a girl if you want her to hang all over you. So OK, you can see the motivation there, but isn't that interesting? Like just already, just in 2006, you've got two people like no, no, no, no, no, you've got it wrong. You've got it wrong. What the actual story is is. But then they still. Mention of course. All these stories have. To like. Oh, and. I heard there were satanists there. Satanic Panic. Like like left A. Psychic scar, I would say. It's not even a scar, A wound, an open, seeping, subterrating wound on society as a whole, and it's just never going to go away.

35:51 But wait, there's more. Because. Someone said again in 2006, I think this is in the same forum, that they had been there many times over the years, but that on their last trip they had heard this weird screaming that got louder and closer to them. And they said upon looking a little bit later we came across a Bigfoot scream online which sounded just like what we heard. No one could believe it. Did we really have a Bigfoot encounter and is this really another part of the Goatman story? Bigfoot, what are you doing here? Like what are you, what are you doing here? Bigfoot what? What are you doing? Get out of here. But OK, 2006 it's not. Quite far enough I mean obviously for them to be sharing these stories in 2006, they had to have existed prior to 2006 in order, you know for like the operator game to have happened on this for so far down this story.

36:40 So here's the thing. I've. Got more stories? For you, so earlier dating of this story, so again, one of the commenters on unexplained-mysteries.com on the forums there goes on to say I used to drive up from Dallas to see a girl from Louisville late night sneaking out. It was around 1997 and looking for something to do. She suggested we go check out Goatman's Bridge because of the myth. Then he goes on to basically explain that he had a Bigfoot encounter right down to like the rocks being thrown at him. Which I should have mentioned it earlier because that is something that's mentioned in the Wikipedia articles. Throwing rocks. Classic classic Bigfoot pastime is having rocks thrown. So is goat man just?

37:24 Is goat man a goat at all or is he just a bigfooted man? A Bigfoot? Hmm, interesting. Something to think about. Here's another comment. They go. Growing up, I too heard the legend. In all the stories I never saw anything strange but did experience some strange things. It was in the mid 1980s while in high school. OK, so we've gone from 1997. Now we're in the mid 1980s, let's say 85, right? So then we also have another mid 80s story. We used to go out to the Alton Bridge, dubbed Goat Man's Bridge back in high school days, mid 80s, we'd go out there late at night on the weekend, crappy little car loaded with teenagers. As our car would get close to the bridge, everyone would totally freak out. It was so awesome to be that genuinely scared. It was like we were in our own teenage scary movie. Nothing ever happened.

38:11 It was just so dark out there. Back in the mid 80s, that area was considered way out in the country, which contributed to the scare factor. So they were having a great time. They didn't even see the Goat Man. They didn't have any anything happen to them just. Just vibes, just vibes. Let's go back to that. That is the. Kind of fear that I will never experience again, you know what I mean? It's done. I'm never going to get it back again. And I think that's what I'm always chasing when I'm looking for these like found footage movies anyway. None of those like 80s and 90s stories that I found mentioned Oscar Washburn at all. Now, in 2006, that one commenter did tell a story about a man being run off the bridge, but it didn't sound. Like a hate.

38:52 Crime, at least the details in the story as it was told by that one person, did not give the impression that it was a hate crime, so it's probably not racially motivated. What I can definitely say is that I went through the Wikipedia history edits for the old Elton Bridge page, and so I did see that the page was created in 2007 for the old Elton Bridge, but the reference of Goatman or Goatman's Bridge being one of the names didn't show up until March 2009. Now to be fair, Wikipedia at the time was not what it is today. However, it was still widely used it. I mean I was using. Wikipedia. Back then I was trying to edit Wikipedia. Back then, I just wasn't very good at it.

39:33 And so I didn't do a very good job, but I was trying so anyone could do it at that time, especially like kids in college were using Wikipedia in in 2007, 2008, 2009. So the reference to the Goat Man's Bridge didn't even show up until 2009. In 2007, it was just a really short article about like, hey, there's this old bridge. It existed. It was made a historical site. Like that's basically it. Then in 2009 someone edits it and says, oh by the way, also you know, it's referencing Goat Man's bridge. And maybe that there's like some hauntings going on there. Then the story about the murdered black man Oscar Washburn didn't get added to Wikipedia until March 2010. So three years after the Wikipedia article for The Bridge Goes Up, finally Oscar Washburn is mentioned. Then on Halloween 20, 2010, woo someone. Added quote UN quote.

40:30 Locally, the bridge is known as Goat Man's Bridge. Do a do a legendary demonic seder of the same name who is popularly believed to inhabit the forest surrounding the area. I was so interested. But there was. No source listed, of course. No source, of course, Of course. That's everyone's problem with Wikipedia. Because it is a problem. People don't list sources. It's so frustrating. So I couldn't find anything about a legendary demonic seder. I couldn't find anything. Everything that is there around the area is just about the goat man. And there's so many different versions. Anyway, this is just how urban legends work, You know? It's going to be so difficult, if not completely impossible, in order to like, trace this legend back to its earliest form and figure out when did Oscar Washburn first get introduced into the story?

41:18 Why did we name him? Why did we name him what we named him? I just have so many questions, But hold on a second. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Because this was so crazy. This was such an interesting find. So, all right, Oscar Washburn, who, like we said, doesn't seem to have actually ever existed, but possibly existed, maybe just not under that name. Oscar Washburn was said to have murdered. Wow. Was said to have been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1938. And reminder, local historians have never found evidence to support this claim. Although, of course, like I said, lynchings and murders of black people wasn't exactly uncommon, at least in the decade prior. So keep that year in mind. Put a pin in that for later 1938, OK, Just before World War 2 started. Also War of the Worlds.

42:03 I think that's right. I feel pretty confident. War of the Worlds, Orson Welles, that came out 1938. Get it, Got it. OK, cool, here we go. So as I'm looking for the earliest recorded reference, I mean, at least online, because that's what I've got to work with. I just want to find the earliest reference to this Washburn character, or at least more broadly. You know, I'm trying to figure out what are people saying about the old Altman Bridge as as far back as I can go. So I found this blog from 2008 listing like over at least 100 of Texas's most haunted places. And of course, at the very first I searched for, I did a Control F for Alton thinking that's going to bring me straight to the Alton Bridge. No, the first thing and actually only thing that pulls up for Alton is the Alton bus crash ex.

42:48 Squeeze me baking powder. What are you? Talking about this isn't even the same Alton, Texas. This is a different Alton, Texas. This one's in the Rio Grande Valley. Rio Grande Rio Grande. This one's in Rio Grande Valley. A school bus crash. A school. Bus crash resulted in the deaths of 20. This isn't funny. I shouldn't be laughing here. It's actually really not funny. A school bus crash. Resulted in the deaths of 21. This is real, this is not an urban legend. And the deaths of 21 junior and Senior High School students by drowning after the bus was crashed into and thrown into a rock pit by a Doctor Pepper truck of all things. Texans love Doctor Pepper.

43:32 That must have been such a betrayal on that day. This is 1989. I don't think I mentioned it in 1989. So since the tragedy, people have claimed to hear the screams of children at the accident site, though most of the locals figure that it's just teens hanging around the area. Some people even claim to have seen figures sitting on the ledge of the pit. So what do you mean? There's two Altons in Texas and both of them have a haunting situation That's near a bridge on a bridge. What are the odds? OK, so in my research I saw. Someone on Reddit say that they remembered when the crash happened and that the news coverage of it was crazy, and they specifically remembered hearing a rumor that they had found children's fingerprints and handprints on the back of the bus as if ghost children had pushed the bus. I kind of.

44:21 Don't know where that was going. I'm not really sure what the intent was there. Like why would the ghost children push push the bus? That's overkill. I mean they were already hit by a truck. I don't fully get it, but the point is is they remembered hearing rumors that there were finger little children fingerprints found on the back of the bus. When I say children, I mean teenagers just to be clear. Anyway though, I got the impression that they were kind of misremembering what happened because so many of these stories are so similar. Because as soon as they mentioned fingerprints on the back of the bus, I was brought back. To the thing. That immediately came to mind when Kai sent this story.

45:02 When I saw the subject of Kai's e-mail and it was like, I don't remember honestly, but there's something about a bridge and I I saw that it was in Texas. I was like, Oh my gosh, I know what story he's talking about. Spoiler alert, I didn't know what story he was talking about, but I immediately thought of this story about, OK, there was an urban legend that I remember hearing on a country music station and the 90s that I listened to. I told you I was born and raised in Texas. That's just a rite of passage. You listen to a lot of country music and I was listening to this like really inappropriate for children afternoon country station show where, you know, the DJs would do pranks and like have calls and whatever. But one of the things that they did was it was this like, you know, this duo and they both maybe they both or maybe just one of them went.

45:52 Anyway, there was an urban legend of a railroad. I thought it was a bridge. It's not. It's a railroad where if you park your car over it because it's at the, it's at the sight of a horrible tragic bus accident where a train smashed into a a school bus and killed all the children. So if you park your car on the railroad tracks, you will get pushed over the the railroad tracks into safety and then when you get. Out of your car and you look at your trunk, you're going to see if you have dusted the back of your car with talcum powder.

46:32 Obviously, what you have to do first, if you've done that, you'll see tiny little. Children's fingerprints where they have pushed your car off of the railway into safety. Now when I was listening to this as a child, as a teenager. The guy that was in the car was for freaking out. I think he was. I don't think he was acting. I think he was genuinely freaked out. It was as it was happening, so I totally believed in it. Scared the living crap out of me. Anyway, that's what I was thinking when Kaisen his story, I was so excited. I was like, oh, I remember hearing about the story. It's not the same story. But then when this guy on Reddit is talking about the Alton bus crash, which is not the same thing that I remember hearing from the country station when he starts talking about the the kids fingerprints on the back of the bus.

47:18 That's what it reminded me of. And so then I'm like, well, hold on a second. It seems like this ghost story or urban legend, whatever is kind of common. So maybe I should look up the original story that I was picturing. Well, I start with trying to find the railroad railroad car story and pretty quickly I find the ghost story of the ghost tracks in San Antonio, which is exactly, I guess what I was looking for. I didn't remember it being in San Antonio in my head. It was kind of up near Oklahoma for some reason. But you know, whatever. Memories are fallible, as I am constantly saying on the show. So turns out it was in San Antonio, and I found this information on rivercityghosts.com. So listen, pause. We're not there yet, but do you remember the year that you're supposed to remember? Do you remember the year 1938?

48:05 Yes. Cool, cool, cool, cool. All right, we're going to continue. So the urban legend of the ghost tracks in San Antonio goes a little something like this. A school bus, like I said, full of children stalled on the tracks one foggy afternoon where there was 0 visibility and it was hit by an oncoming train, killing the children and the driver. Now, today it's said that if you stop your car on the San Antonio Haunted tracks and of course first apply talcum powder to. Your bumper ghostly child hands will push. You to safety and leave eerie prints in the talcum powder that you dusted on your bumper ahead of time. And we're just going to ignore the fact that if you went out to your car right now and dusted talcum powder on the bumper near your trunk, that you would probably also see fingerprints and finger marks because the oils on your hands are left behind on the car. And then the talcum powder kind of like sticks to it. And the.

48:59 Anyway, we're going to ignore that. Listen, we're talking about the San Antonio haunted ghost tracks, OK? Listen, it's scary. Remember how scary the story is? And the school bus full of children and they were ran into by a train and they're all dead now. And that all would be so scary if any of it had actually happened in San Antonio. But it didn't. It was actually a real thing that happened in Utah, which is very far from Texas I should say, and the actual event was called the. South Jordan train bus collision does exactly as it. Said on the 10 in which 20? Three children and the driver were killed again in Utah. First of all, how did it even get? Here how?

49:42 Did how did that happen? How did that story end up in San Antonio as being part of the lore? It doesn't make any sense to me anyway. It's in Utah, the South Jordan train bus collision. What year do you think that happened? What year do you think in Utah the South Jordan train bus collision happened? Yeah, it was 1938. Good job. Absolutely Gold Star for you. The same year that the seemingly fictional Oscar Washburn was said to have been thrown over the old Alton Bridge. So you see all this conflation going around. You see all of how like these little tiny little bits of other stories and other hauntings and other urban legends all get grabbed and put together and then shaken up and then you can't tell where one came from or where the other one came from. It's like a it's like a potpourri. It's like a potpourri of urban life. What else is it like?

50:38 I don't know. I like potpourri. Let me know. You let me know. Madam strangeways@gmail.com. How else would you describe this? But isn't that crazy? 1938 How was that specific year coming up on both of these stories and especially for that one that have come from Utah and then end up in San Antonio and then when I heard the story from Kai I. Immediately thought of the San Antonio. One, even though I didn't remember that it was in San Antonio. So you can see how easy it is. To confuse all these stories because they're all so similar, so real quick, I want to. Touch on one. Paranormal investigation, not one of the televised. Ones but the association for the study. Of unexplained phenomena, phenomena in Texas, Aesop, ASUP, I'm calling it Aesop.

51:21 Is that what they call it? I don't know, but that's what I'm going to call it. So ASAP was invited to come to the bridge to further research efforts by Denton Paranormal Investigation, a group that has since merged with Aesop, which by the way, I got this from the Aesop site, but I got it from the Wayback Machine from Wayback. So who knows what it says now at this point. Anyway, they had made the PET. Wow. They had made the bridge a pet project, and they are the official caretakers of the bridge as part of a county Adopt A Highway program. Isn't that fun? Now, the Internet Archive version of this page on the ASAP website goes on to say that ASAP, of course, is best known as the original 1970s investigators of The Amityville Horror case. And the book's foremost debunkers? As you can tell, I'm confused.

52:12 Because I have never heard of ASAP, I would have remembered it. ASAP sounds so funny, like saying it out loud. And if it's if it's one thing that will stick in my brain, it's like a vocal stem or a vocal tick. And ASAP absolutely is one of those. So it would have stuck with me, but you know me, I went down a little rabbit hole so that I could fully understand what the heck's going on. So if you're curious, Aesop was founded by Rick Moran. Now I was like, OK, Rick Moran. Now we're getting somewhere. This name is familiar, and not just because it sounds like Rick Moranis. This is Rick Moran, which is why that's why it's familiar to me as I thought Rick Moranis the first time I read about Rick Moran when I was doing research for my Amityville deep dive episode.

52:57 So apparently Rick Moran along with Peter Jordan were the ones that debunked a bunch of stuff with the Amityville house and they specifically discovered that the police had not actually been called to the house by the Lutzes. And they also were the ones that proved that there had been no snowfall when the Lutzes claimed to have discovered cloven hoof prints in the snow. So that's who they are. I don't know why ASAP is acting like they were involved because I don't. I can't find. Anywhere and it doesn't. Matter. Here's the point. I can't escape the Warrens. I can't escape the Warrens, Y'all, they follow me everywhere. It's it's crazy. It's like they're haunting me. Anyway, Speaking of hoof prints, which is such a fun word, and it's just, it's just one word.

53:39 There's no space. Hoof prints one single word. Anyway, the ASAP site goes on to say this about their investigation of the old Alton Bridge. They have also recorded the sound of horses hooves crossing the bridge when there were no horses present, and one investigator walking with her German Shepherd dog has seen a horseman dressed in dark clothing galloping toward them, then disappearing without leaving tracks on the path. Both the dog and I heard and saw him, but he disappeared as he made a turn under some bushes and didn't emerge on the other side. The ground was damp and hoof prints should have been obvious, but I couldn't find any, she noted. I where do I begin?

54:21 First of all, what's the dog's name? Why is that not in the article? I feel like that's important. Secondly, I also. Can't escape the headless. Horseman. Now that I've talked about him, he's also haunting me. Thirdly, is it hoof prints like from a is it or is it horse, horse? Why? Why is it horses hoof prints that you're hearing when we've heard a story about goats when there's goats? Why isn't it goat hooves on the bridge? But fourthly, doesn't it seem like maybe? If you were in the dark doing a scary paranormal investigation and you're on a bridge and there's a famous story about a bridge and A and a Headless Horseman that maybe. You'd imagine a horseman if you're spending a while investigating paranormal activity on a bridge. OK, she didn't say he was headless. But I think we can all understand where I'm coming from.

55:20 OK, we're going to wrap it up with other goat men that I mentioned way earlier. So these are from ghostandsouls.wordpress.com and theshadowlands.net. I think you might have to go to the Wayback Machine to get both of these, but it's fine. So these are just in Texas. These are just the goat men in Texas, and there may be more that I don't know about. So first of all, we're going in alphabetical order. We've got Burke Burnett. Burke Burnett, not sure, Goat Man's bridge at Gilbert's Creek. There was a man who was man from head to waist and goat from waist down. OK, so we still haven't found. We still haven't found the man. Who is a man from waist down and then a goat from head to waist. Still looking for still looking for that? e-mail me madamstrangechoice@gmail.com. Hold on.

56:11 But Burke? Burnett continues to say. The comments says. I have also heard that a few miles back behind the bridge is a church, but not just any church, but a satanic church. Of course, of course it's a satanic church. Then we've got Cleburne. Old Foamy I guess is a stream. It says when you go to this. Little water stream you go, you go at night, turn off your headlights and honk 3 times. Huh? Isn't that interesting? It's like we didn't we just talk about that. Didn't we haven't? We heard that, haven't we? OK, then a goat man will appear in front of you. Others say strange things happened to your car. Unclear. Next on the list we've got files Valley the goat man.

56:52 Tunnel footsteps, woman screaming, odd lights stained, blood dripping from top of tunnel. Cool. Next, alphabetically we've got Hamilton, Hamilton, TX, Pecan Creek Trail, another goat man. You have to crawl through a drainage pipe to see so you feel, I feel like you have to be really dedicated to see this particular drainage pipe coat man. All right. And then finally on the list we have. The Lake Worth goat man Who? I have heard of the Lake Worth monster before, but I didn't know that it was actually just a goat man and I don't know why we don't just call it the Lake Worth goat man so no, here we go Texan folklore. The Lake Worth Monster is a legendary creature said to inhabit Lake Worth at the Fort Worth Nature Center and refuge just outside of Fort Worth.

57:41 The creature is often described as part man, part goat, with scales and long. Clawed fingers so I would go. So far as to say there's also another part that we're not. Being told about part fish part lizard because goats and humans don't have scales or long clawed fingers. So I'm going to I. Just have a question. But also it just it doesn't list what part is the man, what part is the goat. So this could be our reverse goat man man. Goat man goat. I feel like I am like dangerously close to a South. Park joke? I feel like I'm dangerously close to accidentally reverse engineering a South Park joke.

58:21 OK but also that's a lot of goat men. How many goat men is that? We got 1/2. 3456 that I am aware of. That's a lot of goat men. What do you call a group of goat men? Anyway, what do you call? OK, hold on. We got to find out. Hold on. What do we call? What do you call a group of goats? What are they called? They're called a herd. That's so that's. So anti climatic? Wait a minute, wait a minute. No, they do have a special term. A herd a tribe or a trip a herd a tribe. Or a trip. So then what do we call a herd of goatmen?

59:02 It's like just a. Billy, because you. Know like Billy's like a guy. 'S name and it's also a Billy goat. Dilly Doo, Dilly Doo, this is Madame. Strangeways from the future, when I'm editing the episode, it just came to me. A a group of goatmen is called a tribulation, right? Because goats is like a tribe. A tribulation. Come on. That's good, right? A tribulation of goatmen. OK, back, back to the past. I feel like there's something there. Let me know what. Do you think what should we call a herd or? At least a small group of goatmen. Madam Strangeways. At Gmail dot. Com let me know what you think.

59:44 And that's the goat man of Elton Bridge, the old Elton Bridge in Denton County. Thank you so much for listening. If you have your own story or just a brush with an urban legend that you'd like to share to hear read on the show, you can go ahead and e-mail that to me at madamstrangeways@gmail.com. Thanks for listening. Remember that you can. Feel afraid and not be in danger. You're safe here with me probably. Thank.

1:00:24 You for joining me for more. True strange stories of the unexplained. Now I'm running A1 Madam show here so please do me a strange solid and follow the podcast or leave me a rating on Apple or Spotify and maybe even join the Patreon at patreon.com/madam Strangeways for bonus content. Madam Strangeways is. Produced. And narrated by me, Madam Strangeways. Theme music is by marina.ryan@marinamakes.co. Cover art is by Andrea Chiselle Roldan at Cult of Teddy on Instagram. Every strange story is shared. With the permission of the author, you can submit your own.

1:01:06 True. Strange story to madamstrangeways@gmail.com or check out the website madamstrangeways.com. See you soon. She. Said ominously.