The Terrible Pig Headed Specter of Pigman Bridge

While visiting Georgia this week,  I happened upon the delightful tale of  Pigman Bridge in Hawkensville, Georgia.  This particular story is about a bridge on Holland Road that has acquired the name Pigman Bridge.  Urban legends and ghost stories about this area abound.   It is a narrow stretch of road that meanders through tunnels and over bridges.  

The first story I heard about the bridge seems too fantastic to be true, but I've been proven wrong in my assumptions before, so who knows?  I found this tale on the Paranormal and Ghost Society web page.  According to this site,  there once was a rather unpleasant fellow who lived in this area.  He liked to cut off the heads of pigs and put them on spikes around his house to scare away strangers.  Some curious boys decided that the pigs weren't that scary and went exploring on his property.  They were also decapitated and their heads were mounted on spikes next to the pigs.  My guess is that this scared away all strangers after.  Of course, it didn't make the townspeople happy and they hunted the pigman down and killed him on Pigman Bridge.  His ghost still haunts the bridge today.  He has the body of a man and the head of a pig.

Another story is far more prevalent.  In this permutation of the tale,  an animal trainer from the circus lived in the area.  He specialized in training pigs.   He lived happily with his pigs until they went crazy and killed him by the bridge that bares his name.

Other tales describe a train wreck that killed over 40 people and left the bridge forever tainted by the blood of the innocents that died in the wreck.

Whatever its origin, many people who visit Pigman Bridge describe seeing the specter of a pigman roaming the shadowy night by the area.   Some people even describe being chased or harassed by this monstrous ghost.   I find this particular ghost story intriguing on two levels, first it is just an interesting story.  Mad pigmen roaming the night are always interesting.  Second,  this story resembles another piece of ghostly folklore I love.  It resembles crybaby bridge.  Stories of crybaby bridges appear in every state and almost every county.  One county in Alabama has two separate crybaby bridges that both have different legends.   Likewise,  Angola, New York also has a Pigman Road with a pigman ghost and so does Millington, Tennessee.   This particular phantom seems to know many lonely bridges.   Perhaps lonely pigmen haunt bridges all over the nation waiting for unfortunate souls to cross their paths.