Est. 1901 · Iowa Railroading History · National Register Candidate · Kate Shelley Heroism · Chicago and North Western Railway · Des Moines River Crossing
The railroad bridge known as the Kate Shelley High Bridge has two distinct histories: the heroic event it commemorates and the engineering structure that bears the name.
Kate Shelley was 15 years old on July 6, 1881. A severe storm had struck the Honey Creek area near her home in Moingona, and a pusher locomotive had fallen through the Honey Creek bridge. Shelley set out on foot in her nightdress, armed with a lantern, to reach the Chicago and North Western Railway station and warn them of an oncoming passenger express. To do so, she had to cross the Des Moines River bridge — a longer structure, the bridge on which her namesake viaduct would later be built. She crawled the span on her hands and knees as her lantern went out, navigating by lightning. She reached the station, the passenger train was stopped, and rescue teams were sent to recover the fallen locomotive crew. Two of the four men in the pusher were saved.
The bridge that now bears her name was not the one she crossed in 1881. The Boone Viaduct was designed by engineer George S. Morison for the Chicago and North Western Railway and built between 1899 and 1901. Standing 185 feet above the Des Moines River and spanning 2,685 feet, it was at completion one of the highest double-track railroad bridges in the United States. The structure was never officially renamed for Kate Shelley; the connection grew through popular use.
Union Pacific constructed a replacement bridge adjacent to the original span, which opened on August 20, 2009, at 2,813 feet long and 190 feet high. The original structure remains in place. The new bridge is officially named the Kate Shelley Bridge.
Kate Shelley Park in the Moingona area, southwest of Boone, preserves the site of her heroism and provides public access to the bridge area.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Shelley_High_Bridge
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Shelley
- https://www.kateshelley.com/
- https://www.kateshelley.com/bridges-of-boone-county.html
ApparitionsPhantom soundsResidual haunting
The paranormal tradition attached to the Kate Shelley High Bridge is thematically coherent in a way that distinguishes it from most haunted site folklore: the legend maps precisely onto the historical event. A figure carrying a dim light — lantern-shaped, lantern-sized — crosses the bridge on dark nights. Boone County locals who've observed the phenomenon say it's Kate, still crossing, still warning.
The bridge that Shelley actually crossed on July 6, 1881, was demolished in the 1930s. The structure she would be haunting, if the legend has any physical basis, no longer exists. The current viaduct was built 20 years after her act of heroism. Whether the apparition accounts migrated from the original bridge site to the more prominent, still-standing structure, or whether the legend is simply attached to whatever bridge bears her name, isn't clear from available accounts.
The secondary tradition — specter steam locomotives and ghostly watchmen who pace the bridge — adds a working-class railroad character to the site's paranormal landscape. The watchmen accounts in particular suggest figures associated with the bridge's operational era rather than with Shelley herself, possibly residual impressions from the decades when night watchmen were a routine presence on major railroad bridges.
Kate Shelley's ghost is also reported in the Moingona hamlet area southwest of Boone, closer to where she actually lived and where the original bridge stood. The apparition there is associated with railroad lines and water crossings rather than fixed to any particular structure.
Notable Entities
Kate ShelleyGhost WatchmenSpecter Steam Engine
