On August 27, 1891, a deadly train wreck in Statesville, North Carolina, resulted in twenty-two deaths from falls or drowning. The passenger train was heading to Asheville from Salisbury between 2:30 and 3:00 a.m. when it approached Bostian Bridge, a sixty-foot-high arch bridge off Buffalo Shoals Road, jumping the rails and plummeting into the creek below. The cause of the wreck remains a mystery to this day.
In the late summer of 1941, a couple encountered a flat near the bridge. Her husband had gone to get help, leaving the woman behind in the car. The woman saw a headlight from a train appear down the tracks. As the train crossed the bridge, she saw the train plunge off the bridge, hearing the screams of wounded people. Once at the scene, she saw the melee below and ran towards a car that pulled up on the road behind her for help. Extremely shaken, her husband and another gentleman stepped from the vehicle as she told of the crash. But, they tossed it up to her lousy dream while waiting. Once the couple had repaired the flat, they stopped at the Statesville train station to report it. The gentleman at the counter said, No train had wrecked last night, but fifty years ago today, there was a horrible wreck on that bridge.
On other anniversaries, people claim to have heard the screeching of the wheels, screams, and moans from the doomed passengers, witnessed apparitions, and the ghost train. A ghostly figure of a uniformed railway employee appeared on the accident’s first anniversary. Many believe he was Baggage Master Hugh K. Linster, who died with a broken neck on the tracks.
Written By: John G. Clark Jr.
Image By: Downtown Statesville
