The Haunted History of Cry Baby Bridge

There are times when, as we all know, that there is a story, and it sounds good. It even sounds logical to us, but that is the thing, do we really take the time to stop and consider all the elements that happen to fit into our world? I think that sometimes we don’t, especially if we are still teenagers and college students. We need to remember that there are times when all these things either click, and make sense, or they don’t click, because they don’t make sense. But that is the thing, some of those things that we pass up on whether or not they make sense, it still makes a great story, and one to pass on to future generations. Why? Well, more than anything, to keep the legend alive. But for how much longer can we keep the story alive.

When I was a teenager, and I lived here in the great State of Illinois, not far from Monmouth, Illinois, I became intimately familiar with all sorts of ghost stories. Whether you could believe them or not. I lived a few blocks from a public cemetery, in which I got to work on telling my own story, and perhaps we can visit this same thing in the future, but that is the thing, there are some stories that have been told over and over again. But that is the thing, does that make the story any more true. The story that I am talking about is the one of Cry Baby Bridge, out north of Monmouth, Illinois.

We tend to get wrapped up in the story that tells us what we want to hear. And I know that today there are many who have gone out to this bridge over the years, and they have explored the things that they have been told, but when it comes right down to it, do these urban legends have a place in the telling of history? I believe that they do.

We must remember that as people we want to understand the world that we live in. We want to know that there are reasons for the things that we are seeing and hearing. The whole thing is that we must remember that these things are simply stories sometimes, but they do give us a few clues as to the world that we live in. And as you can see, there are some grains of truth to these stories as well, but how do we sort out the facts from the fiction, well, that is what we, as humans have to do a great deal of these days. But I think that there are some things that we can learn, but first you have to hear the story.

It was back, when the bridge was first built, and it was an old wooden bridge that crossed Cedar Creek, just north and west of Monmouth. It was late at night, and a woman, who had been disowned by her family, for having gotten pregnant out of wedlock, she wandered onto the old bridge, there, in the darkness, something slipped something out in front of her, in the darkness, and she tripped, and as she did, the baby was taken from her arms, and it plunged into the creek below the bridge. The baby sank out of sight and died in the creek. Now, it is told, that if you go down, and you sit and listen, you can hear the scream of the baby in the night. And then, soon after, you will hear the cry of the mother, as she continues to search for the child that she lost. As you drive out onto the bridge, if you put the car in neutral, it is believed that the baby and the mother will push the car off the bridge, so that your fate won’t be like theirs.

This is the story that I grew up with, though I can say there were a couple of other renditions, one of the other most common ones are that the cries in the night come from a mother in search of a child who was on a buss that plunged into the creek, from the very same bridge.

What I can tell you, is that as far as I can see, there was never an accident that ever occurred on the Cry Baby Bridge that I grew up with, which are images that you see throughout this post. I wanted to go there, to see the bridge for myself, to know what might be out there. I can share this, in 2021 the bridge was closed, as you can see, and it was barricaded off. It is not hard to imagine this bridge when it was in use. While I never had the chance or the ability to check it out while it was still being used, I can tell you, that my first trip to Cry Baby Bridge was one that told me there were a lot of variables that have come to light because of the things that I have learned.

Over the years, many people have been responsible for the passing on of the story, and the creation of alternate versions. Throughout the United States, there are many of these bridges, and that is the thing, those bridges happen to have a grain of truth in them as well, so what makes the one in Monmouth, Illinois so special? That is what I have set out to learn. But why do we think that there should be any grain of truth that comes out of any of this. Isn’t the story of a haunted bridge a waste of time to talk about when we are talking about hidden history, and at the same time wouldn’t it be even more a waste of time when we discuss the fact that it is closed? Well, that is the thing, when there is a bridge that garners this much attention, we should take the time, and talk about the role it plays in the history of the area.

We might want to start by defining some terms here, so that we all have the same understanding of what we are talking about as we talk about all of this. So let’s start with the term urban legend.

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary an urban legend is an often lurid story or anecdote that is based on hearsay that is widely circulated as true. But if this is the case, then is there any truth to them at all? This is the thing about urban legends, they sometimes have a distorted fact that is within them, and this is important to remember, at the same time, they don’t always have to have that truth to them. The thing is, they are widely considered believable, but at the same time, they may play off of the fears and anxieties of the world we live in. In other words, as you have the time to think about this, they make us believe because of the anxiety they may cause.

A few years back when I was talking with a friend at the time, the things that they were floating out there, they were not at all true. We tend to believe that certain places are haunted, but the reason to start that story as I was talking with this friend, was something very simple, and that was that they did not want children to go near the location.

For a brief moment I am going to step away from the urban legend of the Cry Baby Bridge, but only for the sake of talking about urban legends and the stories of haunted locations. Now, do not think that I am saying that all haunted locations are not really haunted by ghosts, for that is not the reason to discuss this at all, but rather think of it from an adult perspective for a moment. As I was growing up, there were people who had told me that these buildings in the corner of town, that had once been a booming military academy, that they were haunted. I knew that this was being passed among the circle of friends that I had at the moment. They were all convinced that they were haunted. They kept telling me that they were haunted by the ghost of a soldier who hanged himself in the stairwell of the one building, that he continued to haunt the grounds in order to keep the grounds safe from those who wanted to hurt the kids who attended the academy.

Now, I was young enough to know that there were a lot of reasons to pass a story like this along to kids, but in one way, it just made me more and more curious about the buildings themselves. But that is the thing, I can tell you, I was never the kind of person who was afraid of asking about something if the thing actually caught my interest. Guess what, these buildings had done just that. So, it was not but a month or two later I took the time to start asking questions. The funny thing is, that I was told not to go bothering the one person I was told, who knew anything about the buildings.

The thing of the matter is, that the more I learned, the more that I came to the realization that the stories that we had been told, was more fiction than it was fact. As I spent one afternoon talking to Colonel Dave Lawson, the more things came to the surface that challenged the going story. He told me that no cadet or teacher ever died on the campus. There had never been any reason to think that a cadet would take his life, not if things were run the way that it was supposed to. But that was the thing, when I took what I had learned from Col. Dave back to the kids who I was talking to, and they tried to say that he was just another part of the coverup.

So, as I can tell you, there are a lot of times when the urban legends that we hear, that there are parts of things that just are not the truth. My math teacher in high school once told me that half the truth is a lie. But that is the thing, it is the half truths that sometimes make for a better story. But that is the thing, do we ever really hear the whole truth when it comes to history?

I can tell you, that as I have been helping a friend do some research, he has begun to see the importance of looking at everything that is said. You may be talking about some soldiers in the Civil War, but at the same time, we have the family of those soldiers, so that we may hear the whole story. Remember, there is no one person who has no influence on someone else. Sure, that person may not have family, but when you see them, they influence someone, they are friends with someone.

But as is importantly pointed out, there are a lot of times when we need remember that the truth that accompanies a story, well, that it is something that we need to know a great deal more about. I can share with you, there are a lot of things that can be explained when we look close enough at the stories.

While you may not be able to access the Cry Baby Bridge in Monmouth, Illinois, I can share this with you, there are a lot more of them out there in existence, some of which are actually haunted bridges, that is if you believe in such things. When I started to look into this urban legend, I was surprised to find out that there were a number of these “Cry Baby” Bridges out there. Does this mean that there is no truth to the story that is out there, the one about the woman and her baby and the bridge, or the school bus and the bridge? I believe that somewhere, something close to that has happened at one of them, but we will never know really the source of this story. We will never know what bridge it was where the accident occurred.

If you want to know what grain of truth that there is to the urban legend about the Cry Baby Bridge here in the area, it is often stated that on a night, when a car pulls to a stop in the middle of the bridge, that they can hear the baby crying in the night. Well, that is the thing, that noise that the people hear, well, the sound is actually the way the wind is moving in regard to the bridge. It makes for an interesting story if you were to hear it.

So, what do you believe? Do you think that the bridge is haunted by the ghost of the baby and the mother, both crying in the night? Do you believe that the bridge is haunted by the ghost of the children on the bus, crying out? As I can tell you, there are so many paths to take, so many shots that we get to tell the truth, and if we choose story rather than truth, what does it matter? Well, I can tell you, the true original cry baby bridge, it was not the one that you see pictured above. This is the new bridge. Yes, it has the acoustical issue, all so that there is the sound like a baby and mother crying in the night, but is that really enough?

There is one thing left to really talk about. What about when you stop and put your car in neutral as you reach the middle of the bridge? That happens to be one of the best parts of the myth. And while there are those who will tell you there is no way that the bridge is haunted, and the reason your car moves when this happens is the fact that the bridge has a 7 foot difference between one side and the other, and the force of gravity pulls you in the direction you are supposed to be pulled.

As I can tell you, there is no way to get your car onto the bridge, so does that mean that a bridge like this is not a part of history? Well, I would say that, for those of us who know how to get to where it is, that it is very much a part of the history of our area. I can remember plenty of people who made the trek out to see what would happen to them, but in the end, we need to keep things real. Just because the bridge is part of local history, does not mean that it is a part of history because the legend is real, but rather that the story is a part of the history of the area. Without the story, there is nothing to scare the younger kids off with. But eventually someone will eventually decide to head out and check the place out.

Thanks for taking the time to read along.