Cry Baby Bridge of Keetonville
A storm brewed while she was gone.
She raced back home in her horse drawn carriage. Lightning struck. Scared horses bucked. The carriage was knocked over on the Boggy Creek Bridge.
She quickly gained her balance but she had lost hold of her baby. Panicked, she began searching. She could hear the baby crying. Screaming at no one in particular she demanded to know, “Where is my baby?”
She thought she heard the baby crying under the bridge. She looked over the side. She slipped, fell into the creek, and was washed into the Verdigris river, never to be seen again.
That was one of several versions about the Cry Baby Bridge story told about the truss bridge built in 1910 crosses Boggy Creek in Keetonville, Oklahoma.
Cry Baby Bridge stories are common urban legends. In fact a Cry Baby Bridge story is almost cliche.
Zoinks!
So what is so special about the Keetonville Cry Baby Bridge?
One version of the story related to the Keetonville bridge has some historical details. True or false? Who knows! Regardless the story is a great ghost story to tell on a dark night while parking a car on an old abandoned bridge.
This version asserts that a young girl was with child and without husband.
Her strict and strongly religious family became ashamed of her. She was abused, beaten, and harassed for her sin. Being tormented throughout her pregnancy by her family and some town folks she went to the Boggy Creek Bridge on Friday, June 13, 1924 after giving birth.
She took her child and tossed it over the bridge. Then she stepped onto the bridge railing and jumped into the creek. She and her baby were washed away into the Verdigris, never to be seen again.
Regardless of which version is told the final portion of the legend asserts that if you park your car on this bridge on a Friday the thirteenth and turn the motor off, you can still hear the baby crying. Then if make sure to keep your car keys with you but leave the car unlocked and go to the edge of the bridge and yell three times, “I have your baby” a soft blue glowing orb will appear on the bridge.
Since you do not really have the baby, however, this ghostly mother will become outraged and lock the doors in your car. Sometimes she causes the car horn to honk.
Unfortunately, the bridge is no longer accessible but the legend still circulates from one generation to another in the town of Keetonville, Oklahoma. Almost every bridge from the early 1900s in Oklahoma has a Cry Baby Bridge story. The interesting thing about this Keetonville story is that a date is given for the event.
Another interesting note is that names have been used in relation to the story: Bessie and Clissie. Nothing much was thought about this, just that someone took creative license and embellished a bit. Oddly though some people have reported that when they listened to the wind blow through the truss bridge they did not hear a baby cry but a woman whispering the name, “Clissie.”
A cemetery near the old bridge had two unmarked graves until 1952. The inscriptions read, “Unknown.” In 1952 two red bricks were placed on those unmarked graves. Inscribed into one of the red bricks was the name, “Bessie” and inscribed into the other red brick was the name, “Clissie.” Before that, according to a cemetery groundskeeper, a single rose was left each June on those unmarked graves. After 1952 no roses were left again.
Cry Baby Bridge of Catoosa, Oklahoma on Keetonville Rd
