{"id":305,"slug":"bloody-bridge-st-marys-ohio","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Bloody Bridge is the swung — the 'one axe' that's the '54 night, the 'head severed' that's the rival's end. The 'Minnie fell' is the told — the 'screamed' that's the horror's sound, the 'or pushed' that's the doubt kept. The 'blood stayed' is the marked — the '1890s' that's the stain's run, the 'bridge named' that's the murder's keep.","The 'well skeleton' is the guessed — the 'years later' that's the body's find, the 'suicide or justice' that's the plaque's ask. The 'canal gone' is the left — the 'mules walked' that's the towpath's past, the 'trail now' that's the water's grave. Bloody Bridge is the kept — the 'marker stands' that's the county's word, the 'legend believed' that's the plaque's hedge.","The file keeps Bloody Bridge: the swung axe, the fallen Minnie, the stayed stain, and the well's question.","Bloody Bridge is the archive's Ohio file — the love triangle that named a bridge."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Bloody Bridge is the archive's Ohio file — where blood stained the planks for forty years.","A bridge keeps its stain — the file's suggestion being that Bloody Bridge's hold is the marked: the 'axe swung' that's the night kept, the 'blood seen' that's the decades' mark, and the 'well skeleton' that's the ending's doubt."]}],"name":"Bloody Bridge","aliases":[],"type":"BRIDGE","type_label":"Bridge","cats":["FOLKLORE"],"groups":["legends","roads"],"desc":"Bridge associated with documented cultural history.","full_desc":"A bridge in St. Marys, Ohio, Bloody Bridge is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Bridge associated with documented cultural history. HauntHunt files it with folklore. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 legend, every one filed as account rather than fact. The site is open to visitors. It is the sort of entry the archive keeps because the ground and the telling both survive.","address":"18380 County Highway 182","city":"St. Marys","county":"Auglaize","state":"Ohio","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":40.547565,"lon":-84.392335,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"The park district explicitly calls the narrative a legend. Do not treat killings or an 1854 origin as independently verified.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":239,"type":"APPARITION","description":"A canal-side love-triangle legend includes a woman’s face beneath the water and unexplained screams. Every road has its ghost story; Bloody Bridge in St. Marys, Ohio is the one the file actually recorded. Local lore carries the account; no documentation has ever caught up with it. The account appears in 'Auglaize County Hauntings and Legends'. It is the sighting the place is known for, and it hasn't stopped.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.7,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Auglaize County Hauntings and Legends","url":"https://www.ohioexploration.com/paranormal/hauntings/auglaizecounty/","publisher":"Ohio Exploration Society","type":"PARANORMAL_ORGANIZATION","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"A canal-side love-triangle legend includes a woman’s face beneath the water and unexplained screams. The crossing keeps its reports the way roads keep their warnings — repeated, local, and hard to fully dismiss. It survives as local folklore, which is to say it survives because people keep telling it. Sources including 'Auglaize County Hauntings and Legends' keep the claim in circulation. Every community keeps one story like this; this is theirs.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Auglaize County Hauntings and Legends","url":"https://www.ohioexploration.com/paranormal/hauntings/auglaizecounty/","publisher":"Ohio Exploration Society","type":"PARANORMAL_ORGANIZATION","authority":4}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"parking":"Small paved trailhead lot; no overnight parking.","public_restroom":"false","last_verified_at":"2026-09-14T10:36:19+00:00","source":{"name":"Bloody Bridge Trail Head","url":"https://www.htparks.org/bloody-bridge-trail-head","publisher":"Heritage Trails Park District","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},"sources":[{"name":"Auglaize County Hauntings and Legends","url":"https://www.ohioexploration.com/paranormal/hauntings/auglaizecounty/","publisher":"Ohio Exploration Society","type":"PARANORMAL_ORGANIZATION","authority":4},{"name":"Bloody Bridge Trail Head","url":"https://www.htparks.org/bloody-bridge-trail-head","publisher":"Heritage Trails Park District","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":2}}