This spooky story starts more than a century ago with a slave midwife who was concerned that parents were having more babies than they could support. She is said to have smothered many babies and buried their bodies near the bridge. After many babies were killed, the midwife began to find that her bucket would mysteriously fill up with blood, and she kept having to go to the river to empty the buckets of blood. On one trip to the river, she lost her footing and drowned.
The river is said to have run red with blood for days after that, and that gave this spot its spooky nickname. Folks say the river will still run red when the moon is full, and some witnesses have heard ghostly babies crying nearby, or the sound of struggling and splashing in the river.
However, some claim that this story is a work of fiction, and the name Bloody Bucket Bridge comes from the fact that there was a bar neaby in the 1930s and 1940s called the Bloody Bucket.
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Geographic Information
- Address:
- Griffin Road
Wauchula, FL
United States
Get Directions » - GPS:
- 27.540626984306307, -81.79188537527807
- County:
- Hardee County, Florida
- Nearest Towns:
- Wauchula, FL (1.3 mi.)
Zolfo Springs, FL (3.3 mi.)
Bowling Green, FL (7.0 mi.)
Lemon Grove, FL (7.1 mi.)
Fort Green Springs, FL (9.7 mi.)
Fort Green, FL (10.5 mi.)
Gardner, FL (13.1 mi.)
Limestone, FL (13.8 mi.)
Fort Meade, FL (14.6 mi.)
Avon Park, FL (17.9 mi.)
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Disclaimer: The stories posted here are user-submitted and are, in the nature of "ghost stories," largely unverifiable. HauntedPlaces.org makes no claims that any of the statements posted here are factually accurate. The vast majority of information provided on this web site is anecdotal, and as such, should be viewed in the same light as local folklore and urban legends.
Bovine excrement! There was a bar not far from the bridge nicknamed as “The Bloody Bucket” because of the many fights that happened there. Griffin road became nicknamed “Bloody Bucket Road” and the bridge “Bloody Bucket Bridge”. The bar was torn down back in the 1950’s, but people still continue to call it such. The story (with no details) about an unnamed midwife killing babies is rubbish. For one thing, the bridge did not even exist until the 1940’s…al freed slaves would have been long dead by then. Second, people would have figured out pretty quick if she was killing babies, and they would have killed her. That’s the way people were back then…to people of any color…let alone a freed slave killing white babies. The story is a product of fertile imaginations and the Internet.
100% correct Dave! I was raised less than a mile from that bridge on Griffen Rd. I walked it day and/or night regularly through the 60s and 70s. I did walk up on a sow with piglets once, but that was as close to “spooky” as I ever saw. The whole story is internet garbage.
i once was on a boat near there and it shook and then we heard a faint far off crying
My nieces and nephew and I drove to the bridge, we parked at the boat ramp and walked to the water. I welcomed the spirits to join us and moments later we heard unexplained noises. I asked the spirit(s) to make ripples and splashes in the water to let us know if they were there. Minutes later we saw ripples in the water and heard a splash. I was then grabbed by my arm and felt a presence behind me after this occurance my niece felt tugging on the back of her pants leg. my nieces and nephew and I were walking back to our vehicle we saw three white figures walking toward us from the water. When we reached the vehicle the lights inside were on as well as the windshield wipers and the blinker. We made sure none of these things were on before we left to walk to the water and no other vehicle or person accompanied us. We took pictures and voice recordings of the occurance. We are not sure if we caught any evidence yet. We plan to review our findings when we reach home.