1,168 Feet of Timber: The Haunted Holcomb Creek Trestle

Reviewed by Josh N · Updated September 20, 2026 · How we verify

Rural Washington County keeps one of the country’s stranger pieces of surviving infrastructure: a wooden railroad trestle more than a fifth of a mile long, still carrying freight over a creek bottom in Oregon. The haunted Holcomb Creek Trestle, also known as the Dick Road Trestle, sits near the unincorporated community of Helvetia, and its scale alone explains part of its hold on local imagination. The ghost stories attached to it are a separate matter, and they rest on rumor rather than record.

A Timber Span Built for a Railway That No Longer Exists

The trestle was completed in around 1911 for the United Railways, a line that ran from Portland to Wilkesboro and no longer exists. The structure was rebuilt in 1947, and a connection to the Oregon Electric Railway was added later. Burlington Northern Railroad used it until the mid-1990s and knew it, unromantically, as “Bridge 16.7.” Burlington Northern merged into BNSF Railway in 1995. Today the trestle is operated by the Portland and Western Railroad.

Why the Dick Road Trestle Is Worth the Drive Anyway

Spanning 1,168 feet, it is thought to be the longest wooden railroad trestle still in use in the United States, and it is the largest trestle in Oregon. That is the part of the story that can be checked. A century-old timber structure of that length, still in working service rather than preserved as a relic, is unusual in its own right, and visitors who care nothing for ghosts still come out Dick Road to look at it.

The Murder-Suicide Story and the Hanging Rumors

The trestle is the subject of several local urban legends and is rumored to be haunted. One account holds that it is haunted by the ghost of a man who killed himself and his family in a murder-suicide in the 1960s. It is also said to be the site of several suicides by hanging in the early 20th century. Neither claim comes with names, dates, or documentation in the available record. They circulate as stories told about the place rather than as events tied to it by evidence, and they should be read that way. Bridges, tunnels, and isolated rural crossings accumulate this kind of lore reliably, and the Holcomb Creek Trestle has the ingredients: remoteness, darkness, great height, and a long service life.

What People Say Happens Under the Trestle

Reports here are thin and largely anecdotal, consisting of the apparition associated with the murder-suicide legend and a general sense among locals that the site is haunted. There is no body of documented investigation, no catalogue of recurring phenomena, and no official acknowledgment of anything unusual. Anyone repeating more specific claims is going beyond what the record supports.

Looking at the Trestle from Dick Road

The trestle stands on Dick Road near Helvetia, in Washington County. It is an active railroad structure operated by the Portland and Western Railroad, which means it is working infrastructure and not a visitor attraction. Climbing on it, walking the deck, or crossing onto railroad property is both dangerous and illegal. View it from the public road, keep out of the way of traffic on a narrow rural route, and leave the timbers to the trains.

Address: Dick Road, near Helvetia, Washington County, Oregon

See Holcomb Creek Trestle for Yourself

Sources

• Tour Helvetia
• A Sense of Place
• Transportation (Senate (official))
• Holcomb Creek Wooden Train Trestle Still Standing!
• This Old Oregon Train Trestle on Dick Road is Said To Be Haunted
• Wikipedia: Holcomb Creek Trestle