Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainA 1.5-mile Oak Cliff trail through Kessler Park where hikers report a girl on a bicycle who disappears at the water's edge and a child's face that appears from behind trees.
2200 Kessler Pkwy, Dallas, TX 75208
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Public trail, free to access.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved trail running along Coombs Creek and Stevens Park Golf Course in Oak Cliff. Mostly flat with some tree cover.
Equipment
Photos OK
Part of Dallas's Trinity Trails network · Follows creek corridor through historic Oak Cliff / Kessler Park neighborhood
Coombs Creek Trail runs through the Kessler Park area of north Oak Cliff in Dallas, a neighborhood developed primarily in the 1920s and 1930s as one of the earlier planned subdivisions in the Oak Cliff portion of the city. The trail follows Coombs Creek, a tributary that drains through the neighborhood before reaching the Trinity River system.
Phase I of the modern trail was completed around 2011 as part of Dallas's Trinity Trails network initiative, which sought to link creek corridors and green spaces across the city. The paved trail runs roughly 1.5 miles from near the Stevens Park Golf Course and its associated tennis courts through tree-lined sections of Kessler Parkway, eventually connecting toward the Trinity River levee trail system. The route passes through partial shade, running close to the creek in stretches that remain relatively undeveloped.
The area around the creek carried no specific documented history of tragedy prior to the ghost stories that circulated in the neighborhood. The legend of Mary, as it became fixed in local oral tradition, attached a drowning or train death to the creek at some point in the early twentieth century — a time when residential development was still sparse in the area and the creek ran largely through open fields.
Sources
The Coombs Creek Trail ghost has been passed along in Oak Cliff neighborhood oral tradition for years and circulates in Dallas haunted-places compilations. The figure is identified as Mary, a girl said to have died on or near the creek sometime in the early twentieth century. The cause of death is not consistent across accounts — drowning in the creek, being hit by a train nearby, or simply vanishing — and no historical record has been located corroborating any specific incident.
The most described encounter involves a figure of a young girl on a bicycle riding close to the water's edge. When hikers call out or move toward her, she disappears into the creek air rather than continuing along the path. Other accounts describe a small face — described as that of a child no older than six — peering from behind a tree along the wooded stretches, disappearing when approached, and then reappearing from behind a different tree farther along the trail.
The legend is low-evidence by the standards of documented haunting claims: it circulates primarily through neighborhood storytelling and travel listicles, without formal paranormal investigations or sustained press coverage. The confidence of the original research candidate was noted as low.
Notable Entities
The 1.5-mile paved Coombs Creek Trail runs through the Kessler Park neighborhood in Oak Cliff, following the creek south toward the Trinity River. The sections where the ghost of Mary has been reported are near the water's edge and the wooded stretches adjacent to Kessler Parkway.
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