Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainA 1919 camelback through-truss bridge relocated to Anderson County in 1952; local legend holds a woman drowned her infant here, and visitors report crying beneath the span.
2806 High Shoals Rd, Anderson, SC 29625
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free; the bridge is on a public road.
Access
Limited Access
Rural road bridge; unpaved shoulder and creek bank, uneven footing.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1919 · Two-span camelback Pratt through-truss bridge, fabricated 1919 in Virginia · Relocated to Anderson County, South Carolina in 1952 · Retired from vehicular service 1987 · One of several Anderson County bridges associated with local ghost legend
The bridge at 2806 High Shoals Road in Anderson County, South Carolina, has a documented fabrication date of 1919 and a Virginia origin — it was produced for use elsewhere and relocated to Anderson County in 1952, a common practice for economical bridge reuse in mid-twentieth-century rural counties. Its design is a two-span camelback Pratt through-truss, a steel configuration widely used for medium-span rural crossings in the early twentieth century.
The bridge served vehicular traffic across the creek on High Shoals Road for thirty-five years after its relocation. Anderson County retired it from active vehicle service in 1987. In the decades since, the structure has attracted the specific category of informal visitor known as legend trippers — people who come to a site specifically to encounter or test a local legend.
Carolina Crossroads, a regional travel and history site, documented the bridge's structural history and location in 2023, noting that the High Shoals Road bridge is one of several structures in Anderson and surrounding counties that have accumulated ghost lore over the years. The bridge's relative isolation on a rural county road and the presence of a creek running beneath it contribute to the atmosphere that sustains the legend.
Sources
The legend attached to the High Shoals Road bridge follows the archetypal Cry Baby Bridge narrative: a woman, driven to desperation by circumstances that vary depending on the teller, brought her infant to the bridge and drowned the child in the creek below. Some versions have the woman surviving and fleeing; others have her taking her own life from the same railing. The core of the legend — the crying infant — is consistent across accounts.
Visitors who come to the site at night report hearing the sound of a baby crying from below the bridge deck, rising from the direction of the creek. A secondary report, less universal, describes a woman in white seen walking the bridge or the road shoulder near it. Carolina Crossroads documented multiple legend variants circulating in Anderson County in 2023, noting that the site draws steady informal traffic from locals and regional legend-trip enthusiasts.
The haunted places aggregator circuit lists paranormal reports at this bridge consistent with other Cry Baby Bridge sites across the South — apparitions, unexplained sounds, a pervasive unease on the structure after dark. No formal paranormal investigation has produced documented findings.
Park on the roadside and walk the bridge over the creek. The two-span camelback through-truss structure — originally built in Virginia in 1919 and relocated here in 1952 — was taken out of vehicular service in 1987 and now stands as an accessible curiosity. Visitors stop at the rail after dark to listen for the sounds the legend describes.
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