Ghosts of Jake's Hill Road

Deep in the heart of Texas it seems the specter of Jake's Hill Road will have to learn how to deal with a busy, modern world or move on to the next plane of existence.

There was a time when a trip out to find the ghost of Jake's Hill Road was a dark and spooky event. The narrow, winding road led from Hutto to Pflugerville, Texas. Whether by the full moon or the dark of a new moon it was a shadowy, dark drive ending next to a cemetery. The bridge was made even darker by the large trees growing along the banks of Brushy Creek. It was said the best spot to find Jake's ghost was on the old bridge crossing Brushy Creek. That bridge is no longer there and even its replacement is no longer in use.

There are several stories about who Jake was and why he came to haunt the area. The oldest story is that Jake was a Blackland Prairie cotton farmer early in the twentieth century. This was a hard way to make a living in the best of times, but for several years in the late 1920's cotton prices were good and Jake did well by his family. In 1929 the price of cotton was the highest it had ever been and everyone was prosperous. People expanded their farms and businesses. In order to expand they went in debt to the bank.

Then on Black Tuesday in late October stock prices started falling. The market lost a significant portion of its value in one day. The crash didn't stop there though. The market kept falling until it was half of what it had been. Money was no longer easily come by. Prices fell, but even with low prices there still wasn't enough money to keep cotton prices up to a point where Jake could make the payments on his farm. Trying to make the payments agreed upon when money was readily available was an impossible task, not just for Jake, but for all farmers. Within a couple of years the price of cotton was so low farmers couldn't even feed their families much less make their payments on their farms. Without their land farmers couldn't support their families. This downward spiral led to many tragedies. Jake was one of these.

According to the story after trying to talk the bank into extending his credit and being refused he went home and shot his wife and their two children. Then he went to the bridge that crossed Brushy Creek and hanged himself from it. One variation I've heard is that the reason he chose that bridge is because the banker who was foreclosing on the farm had to drive over it to get home from the bank.

There are some who claim to have spotted two ghostly children in the area as well. These could be Jake's children, but since I didn't hear about these ghosts until after two children were killed and their bodies hidden near the bridge in the nineties it might be there are some new ghosts in the vicinity.

There is another story that says Jake was actually a young man who murdered his parents and drove their car with the bodies in it off the bridge. He then died in a house fire.

Before the road was reworked a couple of years ago, when driving in the area at night (something I got to do a lot of when taking kids home from events at the school) the headlights would pick out one particular tombstone in the cemetery. I went to look at it during the day once and have to report it did not belong to someone who might be called Jake.

The area is still spooky at night, but hardly dark. The other night when I drove passed the area light pollution from surrounding communities bounced off clouds creating an eerie mango colored haze. In a way though this strange light reflecting off clouds almost makes the area scarier than when it was just pitch dark.

It is still a favorite pot among the high school crowd because boys like to take their girlfriends out there and enjoy the benefits of calming their fears about any ghostly apparitions that might appear. Since the road work was completed there is only a dead end lane leading to the cemetery. It goes just a bit passed it, and stops short of Brushy Creek, so now it is less dangerous to park out there; at least as far as traffic is concerned.

Nowadays, adding to the fright value, you can sometimes hear dogs howling nearby. That could be pretty scary if you didn't realize you were close to Triple Crown Academy, one of the premier dog training facilities in the United States. It does add to the overall, eerie effect of the place though. Just think about it, a grave yard, an abandoned bridge where a man supposedly hanged himself, dogs howling and baying, bodies dumped nearby all makes for a really scary spot. Then, when you get a night fog drifting around the overall feel is as unnerving as Conan Doyle's The Hounds of Baskerville.

This and other stories about ghosts that haunt Texas roads will appear in Atriad Press's Ghosts of Texas Highways.