The Legend Concerning the Ghost of Coombs Creek is very true! If you have ever heard the legend told….you may never forget it. If you have ever experienced it for yourself and tried to tell someone about it, you would never be believed. That is the way it has been for me for years. I’ve never forgotten it nor have I ever been believed. It was in the early 1980’s when I experienced her. I had been at a party at a friend’s house near the second train trestle as you come from Illinois Avenue and I wound up having to walk home well after midnight because I didn’t want to ride my Harley home drunk, so I left it there to come get later. (It was close to 2 or 3 in the morning). I had only gone about a block or so in distance from the house (around the first curve from the house as you head back towards Illinois Avenue) when I came to the train trestle. I had never heard the legend of the haunting, but when I saw the trestle, I froze dead in my tracks. It was as if someone or something had flipped a switch. I felt it the instant I saw the trestle. The cool breeze that had blown so nicely into my face as I walked, just mere seconds before, was now gone and had been replaced by a hot, thick electrical stillness. You could hear and feel the electricity in the air and everything was way too still. You could definitely feel and hear a deep WHOOM, WHOOM, WHOOM that reverberated throughout the area, into the ground and all around you, like it would feel and sound if there was a train engine sitting on the trestle idling, just deeper and more intense. And you could hear the electricity in the air, like bacon frying. Lots of it! And I could definitely feel something or someone watching me. Every hair on my body was bristling and on end. As I stood there transfixed on the trestle, my mind raced for alternatives to passing beneath the trestle. The most sensible would unfortunately add more than an hour to my journey and put my back to whatever it was that I was sensing as I walked up the side of the embankment next to the trestle and up to the main tracks. I decided that I had to just go for it. I looked down and gathered my courage and started towards the trestle at a calm and determined steady pace. The closer I got to the trestle, the stronger the sense of something being there watching and waiting for me became, as the urge to run became equally intense. But I managed to stay at my steady pace and kept my gaze down. I reasoned that if I ran, that might trigger a natural instinct in whatever was there to chase me. I finally got to the edge of the trestle and keeping the steady pace was soon directly under the trestle. Once I was directly beneath it I could see out of the corner of my eye what appeared to be the figure of a small person or “something” watching me from between the support beams as I passed them. I could actually see it turn its head to follow me as I passed, so it was intelligently aware that I was there. From what I could see in my peripheral vision there was no color to it, just different shades of gray and white. When I finally got out from under the trestle, to the other side and a few feet away, the intense feeling to run started to fade a bit and strangely was beginning to be replaced by an almost sad feeling. Not mournful, just sad. As in “sad to see you go”, or “Hey, come back, I want to play”. When I was finally about 20 feet away from the trestle, I heard an ominous sounding bell ring….BAH-RRRIIINNNGGG….BAH-RRRIIINNNGGG! I slowly turned to look back at the top of the trestle, expecting to see a red light blinking on a railroad phone box or the like and saw nothing. I turned back around and continued down the road and around to the next curve. As soon as I rounded it, the breeze was suddenly back and everything felt nice and cool again and I pretty much forgot about the incident… until 2005. I was working at the Lexington Hotel in Southwest Dallas on Independence Drive doing the security thing and had started a conversation with one of the guests. The talk eventually turned to the paranormal and so I told her of a few of the things that I had experienced on the Hotel property. She listened, wide-eyed saying “wow” a few times. When it got quite for a few seconds, she suddenly asked if I had grown up around the area, as if something had just occurred to her and almost blurted it out. I said that I had, and she excitedly asked if I knew where the Coombs Creek Train Trestle was. I said that I knew of “A” train trestle on Coombs Creek, but that I wasn’t sure if it was “The” train trestle or not… “Why?” I asked. She said that there was the ghost of a little girl that was killed there by a train while riding her bicycle and that you could see her riding her bike and hear her RINGING HER BELL! I turned almost pure white and fell into a nearby chair and started to shake uncontrollably. She asked if I was O.K. and I meekly told her about the experience I had back in the 1980’s there. When I was through, tears were pouring from my eyes like a faucet. I wasn’t crying or sobbing. It was like a river of pain flowing out of me, out of my soul. I couldn’t sleep when I went home that morning and the next day on my way back to the job, I stopped by the trestle. When I got out of the car and walked back to the trestle, I thought that I could almost feel the same feeling of being watched as I had back in the 1980’s only not as intense. Starting at the base of the trestle, I took random pictures of the whole area. When I finally got a chance to view them, I initially found nothing. Then, a few years later, I had been on a website that had some pictures that some people had submitted and they had circled all these images within the photos that they claimed were faces. They even re-tinted them to “bring out” the detail. So I pulled up the “Coombs Creek” pictures I had taken and I was going to circle a few “faces” just to prove a point. The point being that you can find “faces” in just about any photo you look at due to the matrix phenomena. When I circled the first “face” it caused me to notice a white smudge near the base of the trestle next to the caution sign. I isolated the “smudge”, enlarged it and re-tinted it to attempt to bring out the details and I was floored. I’m not saying that this is the image of a ghostly little girl that was killed while riding her bike (Image page 1and 2), but it sure is a strange coincidence to get an image like that a site that is supposedly haunted by one. I’ll leave it to you to decide if it is her or not. As for me, I can feel it in my heart and with my soul that it is her. I think of her constantly, and the memory of her haunts me still. I was at a friend’s house recently and her little granddaughter had a tricycle with a bell on it. The little granddaughter rode up behind me while me and her grandmother were talking and rang her bicycle bell, warning me to move off the sidewalk so she could ride past. I turned pure white again and the same chill I felt back in the 1980’s, so late at night, suddenly became my spine. That was the exact way the little bell I heard back in the ‘80’s had sounded, exactly! The only difference was the one that I heard back in the 1980’s sounded a lot more hollow or far off. Almost like a loudly whispered echo. I’ve been researching the incident and have learned a few things that may be preventing anyone from finding a story about the accident. The street is currently named Coombs Creek. A 1905 map of Dallas (Image page 3) shows a creek by the name of Coombs Creek.. Coombs Creek Road does not exist in an aerial of the site taken about the time of the survey (Image page 4). It has one, maybe two homes right at the trestle site, with one possibly being the residence of Isaac Coombs. It may have been his daughter that was killed by the train and they named the creek and eventual street after her or him. So researching the accident may require one to inquire about the accident at the Coombs Creek Trestle of the Gulf, Colorado & Sante fe Railroad involving the daughter of Isaac Coombs. I’ve written a song about her and if upon further research I discover her name was Mary, I’ll probably break down again. Rest in Peace Sweetie. Coombs Creek Lullabye By Michael Parrish I think about you, everyday Since I found out, why you went away Was there something that you, tried to say Um-hmm, so I could help to set you, Free again Oh-ho, well I heard you when you, rang your bell And to this very day it, brings me chills If I would’ve looked, I know I would’ve seen your face Um-hmm, staring back at me, from that lonely place Oh-ho, pretty Mary, ring your bell Trapped inside your, your little hell Ring it Mary loud enough for all to hear Um-hmm, someone will come for you and wipe away your tears Oh-ho, oh pretty Ma-hary Oh pretty Ma-hary Oh-ho pretty Mary Ring your bell Cold but not winter, crisp maybe fall When I felt the sadness, in your call I felt the power of your, darkest fears Um-hmm And when I learned the truth I, cried your tears Oh-ho, now I think about you, everyday And it kills me crazy, when I hear them say No one was there to save you, from your play Um-hmm and no one tried to stop you as you rode away Oh-ho, into your little hell, your little box without a key Oh-ho, where you’ve had to stay for what seems eternity Oh-ho pretty Mary, what a price to pay Oh pretty Ma-hary Oh pretty Ma-hary Oh-ho pretty Mary I heard your bell Cold but not winter, crisp maybe fall, I close my eyes and I’m there and I listen for your call, And then I see you, you take me by the hand, I wipe away your tears and I lead you home again, So pretty Mary, take me by the hand, Oh pretty Mary, now I understand, Oh-ho pretty Mary, why I heard your bell, Oh pretty Ma-hary Oh pretty Ma-hary Oh-ho pretty Mary, nevermore to ring your bell, Oh pretty Ma-hary, Oh pretty Ma-hary, Oh-ho pretty Mary…….
Posted on: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 16:17:18 +0000