After watching the movie “Bridges of Madison County”, my husband and I decided we just had to go see all those lovely red covered bridges in south central Iowa. We are from eastern Iowa originally but lived in southern Minnesota when we journeyed down to Winterset, Iowa.
We had a lovely time finding and walking through each of the seven bridges. We even found the “lost” bridge that had been accidentally burned down by a foolish man trying to put his and his sweethearts initials into the McBride bridge using a blow torch!
Over time we have been down to the bridges many times. On one such visit I found a ghost story book in a gift shop and low and behold one of the covered bridges was named in it! Well, down we headed to check out the tale of the Roseman Covered Bridge… It seems back at the turn of the last century a man had gotten a lonely unmarried girl pregnant and her father finally got the name of the father of the baby out of her and demanded that he marry the girl. her father promised the young man land and a fine horse to seal the deal as well. Well the day approached and the young man rode his horse to the father’s house for a civil ceremony. He came in the house, looked at his would be bride and stated “I can not go through with the marriage!”; he bolted out of the house jumped on his horse and raced away with her father and a few other townsmen not far behind him…here is where the legend of the Roseman Bridge haunting comes in: as the young man raced through the Roseman Bridge his horse came out the other end empty saddled and still racing away. The men chasing the horse caught up to the empty saddled beast but no trace of the man was ever found and no-one ever knew what became of him…the men saw him on the horse going into the bridge but all saw an empty saddled horse appear out the other side!
So there I stood on the far end of the bridge trying to hear the alleged horses hoofs racing through the bridge… a warm summer evening, a soft breeze blowing and me hearing nothing even remotely close to horses hooves clomping across the bridge. I started looking at the lazy creek below and noticed a few frogs hopping about and water bugs skating on the surface of the water, my concentration leaving the bridge for the water below it.
That is when it happened! Sure enough I heard hooves! I really and truly did! My husband who was in the gift shop some yards away came over to see if I had heard anything and he could tell by my face I had! We stood there together in the evening dusk and I swear to you it sounded just like a wagon strolling through the bridge as we stood there together… we love our covered bridges even Roseman Bridge otherwise known as The haunted bridge!
Sent in by Pat, Copyright 2010 TrueGhostTales.com
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thats cool you heard it.i was picturing the bridge when i was reading the story and i do believe you.it sounds nice there.thanks for the story.
i live not far from winterset, by the way the birth place of john wayne, and i have seen some of those old bridges! i honestly didn’t know about what happened with the bridge burning. i thought it was on purpose. anyway i have heard the tale of the runaway groom, and of the sounds of horses and buggies. cool huh. thanks for the history lesson! if anyone gets into iowa stop by madison county!!
Yes Winterset is the birthplace of legendary western star John Wayne too! Also HISTORY!
i dont blame the guy for disapearing, he just wanted to escape. how do you know so much about this place? it sounds made up
Ahhhh Big Barney…..I read the story in a ghost story book and after speaking to a local man that runs a gift shop near Roseman bridge he said he had heard that tale as well. As I stated, I have become fascinated with all things relating to covered bridges and those are so close to us that we visited them quite often. Now we live in NM and only see them once a year now….come on down and check them out for yourself… the haunted one is Roseman!
big barney, these bridges have been there for over a century. the people of madison county have been telling these for that long. there are many families who settled there still in the area. do you believe the story of the hatfields and mc coys? look up the history of iowa and you will find the pioneers that settled this area very interesting. heck i’m only a county away from where jesse james made a few robberies. these are not stories.
Thanks troll doll! It is history!
p.s. Adair county is where jesse james did train robberies. i live in union county! i have been by the exact spot on the old railroad and the area where jesse and his gang hid out! jesse was from missouri.
have you heard anything when you were there?
wow that is an amazing story! it so facinating i wish somthing like that would happen to me.
nice story
seriously i am troubled at night because of them still like to read them
Well I didn’t do it!
The tail of Roseman Bridge is true all my life I have lived in Winterset,Ia and the story is very very true i have been to roseman bridge with some friends and we met the taps team and they proved the tail of roseman bridge is true I am not lying! If you dont belive me then go there and listen for noses and i will be right !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! : ) Try it!!!
How fascinating..The bridges look beautiful and architecturally goregeous considering the time period they were built, and considering the tools they had to use. I must get there to see/hear this…how did all the bridges get their names…….was the future groom named Roseman or was the bride to be named Roseman? Sounds like the future father-in-law/grandfather had a legend/story for others to remember..thank you for the info Pat.