Crybaby Bridge
Crybaby Bridge – Monmouth, IL
By Michael Kleen
Many years ago, as lightning flashed and storm clouds swirled overhead, a young unwed mother—driven mad by the pain of abandonment, regret, and the fear of being ostracized—hurled her week old baby boy over the trestles of this rural bridge into the swirling water below. Ever since, passersby have heard the spine-tingling cries of a baby struggling to breathe. Or, so the story goes.
This one-lane, steel bridge spanning Cedar Creek three miles northwest of Monmouth is one of many christened a “cry baby bridge” because of its alleged connection to an incident like the one just described. Another popular story told is that an elementary school bus plunged off the side of the bridge during a flood. All the children drowned, but should your car break down while crossing the bridge, their ghosts will push it safely to the other side.
As a result of these stories, otherwise mundane rural bridges have become the focus of intense local curiosity. Few residents of Monmouth have never heard of their cry baby bridge…
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so i had heard of this legend years ago. myself, and my team of investigators, decided to go check it out. we live in the Q.C. (quad cities). so we drove to monmouth, il. and arrived there on Friday early morning (approx. @ 12:10 am.) July 16th. 2010. we proceeded to drive onto the middle of the bridge,put the shifter into neutral,rolled up the windows,turned off all lights,turned off ignition then sat there for a few seconds hearing little feet crunch on gravel pieces then started to feel the truck rolling slowly backwards. we decided after driving away to go back to see if this would happen again. this time facing the opposite way. we experienced the very same thing again but this time the truck moved forward instead of backward. however, the same direction, we noted @ this point that there was a slight uphill incline to the bridge and those children pushed uphill that and the fact that we heard their feet on the gravel pieces even before the truck started to move convinces us that this is no myth. this happened 3 times within approximately 15 minutes, this story is fact! we drove not far after this incident to a lighted area and put baby powder on the entire truck finding several little finger/hand prints. DO NOT GO BY YOURSELF! take a buddy.
i am also from the qc and we have been out there a few times. its a good time. it has worked for us every single time. sometimes it happened right away, others it took 10-15 minutes. however we never had any luck with the baby powder. looking for other places to go! suggestions???
Try driving down Archer Avenue late some night from the Willowbrook Ballroom towards Resurrection Cemetery, usually in late Fall or winter. You might see Resurrection Mary!