Haunted Greensboro: Return to Lydia's Bridge
by Liv | Published on June 17th, 2006, 3:31 pm | Greensboro
For the last 83 years, a ghost named Lydia has been apart of Greensboro folklore, urban legend, and myth, mostly do in part to a single bridge in the little suburb community of Jamestown.It's been nearly 6 years since I've been to Lydia's Bridge, and I felt it was time to return to this ghostly place that was apart of every young high school student rite of passage growing up in Greensboro.
Jamestown is a community that houses more than one Ghost tale, as it is also home to GTCC, which used to be a isolated medical facility housing patients with untreatable conditions. The resident doctors house currently still stands at the forefront of the property, and is said to be haunted from when he carried out horrible medical atrocities to its unknowing patients.
But the most notable of all Ghost legends is that of a high-school student named Lydia who died in 1923 in a car wreck. While many versions of the Jamestown Ghost exist, the most popular version is that Lydia was on her way to her prom with her date one night who was driving way to fast. They came upon the curve in the road approaching the bridge and lost control, slamming the vehicle into the opening of the tunnel. While her date died immediately, she stumbled out of the vehicle and attempted to waive down any vehicle that came by. Passerby's assumed she was just another hitchhiker, and passed her by until she eventually succumbed to the injuries sustained in the accident and died on the side of the road. When news of Lydia's death hit the citizens of Jamestown in the following days, they replied with outrage, and demanded that the curve in the road be corrected, and thus the building of the adjacent bridge directly to the right of the current one.
Legend says that on certain nights if you travel down into the old tunnel, you can see Lydia in her luminous blood stained prom dress trying to get a ride. Some people have suggested she's merely trying to make it to her prom.
The last time I visited Lydia's Bridge was about 6 years ago, and I wondered if I'd even be able to access it, since the only access to it is a overgrown make-shift footpath from daredevil high-school students attempting their right of passage & late night fun.
First I had to find it. The best place to access Lydia's Bridge is here:
This is a housing tract that sprung up just adjacent to Lydia's bridge after the road was rerouted. Turn into this road and about 1000ft from the intersection is a small gated road leading to the power company's switching station. I parked on the road here:
And here's the road leading back to the switching station:
Rather then going up the stone road and trespassing, you can merely climb the hill and and walk down beside the station to get to the bridge behind it:
Of course if you want to be dangerous and look like Mr Stick Figure here, be my guest:
Eventually you'll come to a point where the grass ends and the Kudzu starts. This is where your adventure begins. You'll need to find the foot path down into the tunnel. Today, it was less visible then it has been on other visits.
In this next picture you can see the new overpass which is currently used for traffic:
There's the path:
Once your on the path, the bridge is only about 500 feet in front of you, but you can only barely make it out due to the growth of plants covering it. Here you can just begin to make out "Lydia's Bridge":
About half way down the path I turn around, and I can see where the former road would have gone right through the power station:
Here's a chunk of leftover road from many years ago:
At last I reach the entrance to the tunnel, and I stop and think for a moment about how I hadn't exactly told anyone where I was going, and there might be some crazed homeless person foaming at the mouth who attacks me with a hubcap and eats my flesh. But knowing, no one could eat that much... I figured what the heck, and into the tunnel:
I am now inside the most haunted overpass in North Carolina. It is without a doubt much less scary to come during the day, then at night, but you still get a sense of time gone by as you step into it's century old walls.
Evidence of local Graffiti artists and homeless visitors are the closest I will come to confirming the legend of Lydia and her ghost today:
Looking out the other side of the tunnel:
As I leave a train passes overhead, and I managed to get a unique picture of the bridge with the train going overhead:
A few last pictures of the outside of the bridge before I leave:
All in all, it was fun to return to Lydia's Bridge, although at some point I will go back at night, but I'm definitely going with someone if I do. If you'd like to visit Lydia bridge here's a handy dandy link to the street I parked on:
The name of the street is YorkLeigh Lane:
Google Map to Lydia's Bridge
Now somebody call the Ghost-Busters.
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