Dead Cats, Long necks and a 1965 Chevy

Dead Cats, Long necks and a 1965 Chevy

          Location:  Gosport Indiana (Mapped)
          File Under: Ghost, strange places, red necks, suicide

My wife's brother used to live in the some backwoods stump of a town called Gosport. I have to admit it's changed quite a bit over the last 15 years but I was still surprised to read that they a little over 700 people now. Gosport is hidden deep in the woods right behind Bloomington and about an hour from Indianapolis. Can you say guns, mullets, 4 X 4's and budwiser long-necks?

We would drive from St. Louis MO to Gosport sometimes after work on a Friday, by the time we would be entering Gosport it would be pitch black, the over arching trees would even block out the moon light. This was such a long creepy drive because by this point we had already worked an 10 hour day and we would be 4 hours into our drive and very red eyed. Not a good place to be driving with droopy eye lids. If you weren't dodging a million deer then you would be dodging locals in their 4X4's that took up 85% of the narrow rocked roads. I'm not sure how many times I almost ended the night in a ditch.  Anyway, right before you enter Gosport you would cross this old bridge and that's how we would know that we weren't lost and this is where my story really begins.

I have two short stories about this bridge the first one let's call it, A Cats Tail.

It was a little after midnight and we were just coming to the bridge when we saw this cute little white kitten running down the center of the bridge. My wife yelled for me to stop so that we didn't scare the little critter into an on coming car or worse yet, scare him off the bridge. I stopped the car in the center of the bridge, the car lights illuminated the entire rusty dump of a bridge. When I stopped the car the kitten stopped as well. He then turned around stared right at us and sat down right there in the middle of the bridge. I decided that I would get out and get the kitten in order to take him to a safer spot. When I opened the car door and walked out in front of the headlights, the kitten made a single meow and walked to the bridges edge. He perched himself on the edge as though he was looking at something in the water and then he was gone. There was no splash, no meow, nothing. The damn thing jumped. I ran to the edge expecting to see the cat floating down river, but nothing. The drop was about 20 feet and you could just barley make out the water. I was convinced that he must have jumped to a supporting beam below the bridge but there weren't any. I'm a realist and don't believe that it was a ghost cat, nor do I think it committed suicide but I'll be damn if I know what the hell happened to that little kitten. I will never forget his face, nor the look on my wife's face when I returned to the car. I still get teased about this story by the locals that know me there, "Seen any suicidal cats lately."

The second story was told to me a couple of the locals and I have no reason to doubt the story after hanging with them for the night. I guess when you live in the middle of nowhere you have to invent your own amusement. If you have ever been to Gosport then you know Kip IS the local amusement. They say you could tell when Kip was going to go out on a hell bent night by the a single wrinkle that would appear on his forehead. Although there are a lot of stories about Kip, the one related to the bridge is about how he used to scale the side of the bridge with a six pack of long-necks. He would then sit there and drink the night away, only coming down once all six had found their way to the bottom of the river. This started a little uproar in the city because people had seen him on several occasions 40 feet over head drinking his beer as they drove through. Although there was a lot of the town that didn't believe the story, the bad shape the bridge was in would be suicide to scale. Kip didn't like to be doubted so he started stealing stuff and leaving atop the bridge, each item bigger and heavier than the last. Items included lawn ornaments, street signs and even a bicycle. The final item was a head off of his 1965 Chevy that hadn't run in years. I'm not sure what a head off of a 65 wieghs but I do know it most likely weighed twice what Kip weighed.

I'll be honest, I wouldn't have believed this story if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes (sumer of 1989). When I made it back this past year, it wasn't there anymore. I asked a couple of the people that knew the story and they said no one knows what happened. Best guess it was blown off by one of the several tornados that have hit the area over the last dozen years or maybe Kip just got tired of the story and finally put that 1965 Chevy back together. - Justin Makler

Couple more photos of the bridge.

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Comments

[Nicole Kojak]

I bought a house in Edwardsville, Il. last June. Since this time, the house next door has been sold/rented to four different families. No one has stayed longer than two months. This past weekend the latest renters were having a moving sale. My boyfriend, curious as to what is going on with everyone moving out, asked the woman; she told him that the house is haunted. I'm curious if you have any information on the house? The address is 1234 Randle Edwardsville, Il. 62025

[Teresa]

I just thought I'd say your story about the cat is very interesting. I'm from a town called Gosport in the UK and I was kinda wondering what the one in Indiana is like- and now I know. I don't think I'll ever be going to that Gosport!

[A former Gosportian]

You should research the old bridge that burnt. I think we lost a Gosport fireman when this happened. It's been many years ago.

[W. Becher]

I can tell you that my father was a fireman serving the night the bridge burnt. The fire began when a group of kids started the fire as a Halloween prank. My Dad lost his best friend, another fireman, when the bridge collapsed. The fire trucks did not carry enough water to put out the fire. My dad ran nearly a quarter mile with the hose to find the nearest water access. When he returned, his friend picked up the hose and began running across the bridge to help fight the fire. He had reached approximately the half way mark when the bridge crashed into the water. My Dad raced into the water and dragged his friend, then deceased, out of the river, up the bank and to his family's house. The town doctor, Doc Thom (father of acclaimed author,James Alexander Thom) was summoned, but it was too late. My father, who passed away three years ago New Year's Day, never recovered from that tragedy. Until the day he died, he swore it was one of the most traumatic days of his life. He often mentioned that The Gosport Bridge was the only connection to Bloomington, Indiana. The State of Indiana did not want to fund the reconstruction since there was a highway in the works. As a result of the loss of the bridge, the economy of Gosport deteriorated and the town slowly declined. There were a few side roads cut through woods, as a means to gain access to Spencer, Indiana and also to Bloomington, but to no avail. The town sank into a recession and never fully recoverd. Gosprt had been a thriving economic town, as well as an amazing cultural area/artist colony. It was home to T. C. Steele, a hotel offering 'the waters' treatments, river gambling, several river hotels (one owned by my grandparetns), etc. Many of the businesses that were once part of the thriving community could not be sustained without the transport access afforded by the bridge. Further, the people commuting by train from Spencer, and traveling further South had no reason to stop in Gosport. Stores, barber shops, concrete factory, farms, business ties, even schools suffered as the town lost access to the bigger city of Bloomington. Families who had sent their kids across the bridge to Gosport schools had no means to transport their kids, and eventually sent their kids to Bloomington. The story is legendary, and is documented in the town museum (located in the bank basement).