Reviewed by Josh N · Updated October 14, 2026 · How we verify
Reported Phenomena
- Moans during passing trains
- Woman's crying
- Unexplained thuds
- Splashing in the creek
- Feeling of being watched
Reported by visitors & local legend. Stories, not verified claims.
Avon’s haunted bridge is not a ruin or a relic. It is a working railroad viaduct in Hendricks County, Indiana, carrying freight over White Lick Creek while cars pass underneath on a narrow county road. What makes it worth a detour is not the engineering, impressive as it is, but the fact that two separate tragedies, neither of them documented in any official record anyone has produced, have attached themselves to the same span of concrete and refused to let go.
Quick Orientation for First-Time Visitors
- What it is: A concrete railroad viaduct over White Lick Creek, reported as roughly 300 feet long and 70 feet high.
- Built: 1906, for the Big Four Railroad.
- Where: Avon, a town in Washington and Lincoln Townships, Hendricks County, about 13 miles west of downtown Indianapolis by way of U.S. Route 36.
- Access: The road beneath the bridge sits beside Washington Township Park. The route under the span is closed to traffic at night.
- Status of the stories: Local folklore. No verified death records have been published to support either legend.
A 1906 Viaduct in a Town That Was Still Farmland
When the Big Four Railroad put up this bridge in 1906, Avon was not a town in any legal sense. The first settlement in the area dates to around 1830, and the local post office had operated under the name Smootsdell from 1868 before being renamed Avon in 1870, borrowing the name from the River Avon in England. That post office closed in 1902, four years before the viaduct went up. Avon would not be officially incorporated as a town until 1995, nearly ninety years after the bridge was finished.
That matters for anyone trying to check the ghost stories. The structure was raised in a rural stretch of Hendricks County at a time when there was no municipal government keeping records, which is one reason the tales attached to it have never been confirmed or conclusively knocked down. Today the surroundings could not be more different. Avon has grown into a suburb of the Indianapolis metropolitan area, with a population of 21,474 at the 2020 census and nearly all of its residents living in territory classified as urban. The bridge is now a nineteenth-century-style piece of infrastructure sitting in the middle of twenty-first-century subdivisions.
The Worker Said to Be Sealed in the Concrete
The oldest and most repeated story holds that during construction a railroad worker fell into a form full of wet concrete and could not be recovered, and that his body was left entombed inside the finished bridge. Some versions expand the toll, claiming four more laborers died under unclear circumstances while the span was going up.
Treat this as folklore rather than record. No published death certificate, inquest, or newspaper account has been produced to identify the man, and construction fatalities on a project of this size would normally have left a paper trail somewhere. The story does, however, follow a pattern repeated at concrete bridges and dams all over the country, which is a reasonable argument that it travels as a legend rather than as local memory of a specific accident.
What visitors report is consistent with the tale whether or not the tale is true. People standing underneath describe low moans and drawn-out cries when a train crosses above them, sounds that get attributed to the trapped worker and that skeptics attribute to steel, wind, and a tall concrete channel doing what tall concrete channels do.
Why Drivers Honk Beneath the Span
The second legend is the one that gave the place its nickname as a screaming bridge. A young mother is said to have died here with her infant. The details shift depending on who is telling it. In one telling she was crossing the tracks, saw a train coming, and jumped to escape it, and the baby did not survive the fall. In another she was rushing a sick child toward a hospital, lost her footing, and both of them went over.
There is no supporting documentation for either version. What persists is the ritual it produced: local tradition says motorists passing under the bridge should sound their horn, the idea being to cover the sound of the woman’s weeping so that it does not follow them home. Plenty of Avon drivers still do it, most of them without believing a word of the story. Witnesses say her cries are loudest on windy nights, carrying down the creek valley.
What People Report Hearing at White Lick Creek
Reported experiences at the bridge are almost entirely auditory, which is unusual for a site this well known. Recurring accounts include:
- Moaning or wailing that rises while a train passes overhead
- A woman’s crying, described as coming from the creek bed or from above
- Heavy thuds against the concrete with no visible source
- Splashing in White Lick Creek when nothing is seen to enter the water
- A sudden sense of being watched by visitors standing directly beneath the span
None of this has been independently verified, and the setting supplies a great deal of ordinary noise: moving water, freight traffic, wind funneled through a 70-foot concrete corridor, and wildlife along a wooded creek. That does not make the accounts dishonest. It does mean a careful visitor should rule out the obvious before reaching for anything else.
Visiting Avon’s Haunted Bridge
The bridge stands next to Washington Township Park, which gives visitors a legitimate place to park and walk during daylight hours. Go in daylight the first time. The creek banks are uneven, the road beneath the span is narrow, and the route under the bridge is closed to vehicles at night, so turning up after dark to sit in your car is not an option.
This is active railroad property above and a public road below. Do not climb the structure, do not walk the tracks, and do not block traffic for photographs. Watch for cars coming through the underpass, because sight lines are short. Park facilities keep their own hours, so check posted signs before you arrive.
Whether anything lingers at Avon’s haunted bridge is not something a visit will settle. What a visit will give you is a genuinely strange piece of 1906 railroad engineering, a creek valley that amplifies every sound made near it, and a local custom you can take part in simply by pressing your horn on the way through.
Address: County Road 625 East (Washington Township Park)
See Haunted Bridge Avon for Yourself
Sources
- 2020 U.S. Gazetteer Files (Census (official))
- History of Hendricks County, Indiana: Her People, Industries and Institutions
- Hendricks County
- Indiana names, v.1-3
- Census of Population and Housing (US Census Bureau)
- Wikipedia: Avon, Indiana
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Haunted Bridge Avon located?
Haunted Bridge Avon is located at County Road 625 East (Washington Township Park).
Can you visit Haunted Bridge Avon?
Haunted Bridge Avon is open to the public. Always follow posted rules and respect private property.
Reader sightings
Nobody has reported anything here yet. If you have been, you would be the first.
Report your own visit to Honk Your Horn: Avon’s Haunted Bridge Over White Lick Creek
How haunted is this place?
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