Old Alton Bridge (Goatman's Bridge)
A bridge near Denton that locals call Goatman's Bridge, tied by local legend to a half-man, half-goat figure and to stories about a Black goat farmer.
Locals call the Old Alton Bridge Goatman's Bridge. Wikipedia says the name comes from a half-man, half-goat figure said to haunt it, and traces that belief to a legend about Oscar Washburn, a Black farmer who kept goats. In that legend he settled with his family a short way north of the bridge, earned a name as an honest and reliable businessman, was nicknamed the Goatman by his neighbours, and put up a sign on the bridge pointing the way to him.
Atlas Obscura tells the local ghost story differently. In its version, a prosperous African American farmer who kept goats was, the story goes, lynched on the bridge in 1938 by Klansmen from the area, who hanged him from the bridge and then found no body when they went below to make sure he was dead. None of the sources records the killing or the farmer outside the legend, and none examines whether it happened.
In 2017 the Dallas Observer reported that Buzzfeed Unsolved, a web series on true crime and the supernatural that claims over 200 million viewers, had made an episode about the bridge.
"Locally, the bridge is known as Goatman's Bridge, as it is said to be haunted by a half-man half-goat figure called Goatman.[3] The belief is based on the legend of a black goat farmer named Oscar Washburn, who was said to have moved his family to a residence just north of the bridge. A few years later, Washburn, having become known as a dependable and honest businessman and dubbed the "Goatman" by locals, displayed a sign on Alton Bridge reading "This way to the Goatman"."
- Goatman's Bridge, Atlas Obscura (2018)
- Denton Urban Legend Put to the Test on Buzzfeed Web Series, Dallas Observer (2017)