The Spook Light of The Headless Elmore Rider, Ohio

Dec 15

Stories of spirits returning to the place they died appear throughout history and the world. These are spirits that for one reason or another are trapped in an endless cycle reenacting their deaths or looking for those that caused it.

According to legend if you head to a specific road near Elmore, Ohio, you’ll find one such spirit along with the light from his motorcycle. But if you get closer, you’ll find the spirit is missing its head.

The Legend of The Elmore Rider

In 1917 the United States entered World War I and after around six weeks, the Selective Service Act passed allowing millions of adults to be drafted. One of these men had just fallen in love in Elmore, Ohio with a beautiful young woman who lived near the Slemmer-Portage bridge.

Though the two knew the dangers of war, the young woman promised to wait for his return. The man hopped on his motorcycle, kissed his love, and sped off. Weeks, months, and finally a year passed before the soldier received his discharge papers.

The Soldier Returns

On March 21st the man arrived back in Ohio, hopped on his motorcycle, and within a few short hours he was turning the bend near the Slemmer-Portage bridge and his girlfriend’s home. The soldier wanted to surprise her so he entered her house from the unlocked backdoor and spotted her sitting at the dinner table.

To his shock, she was sitting with another man, holding his hand. The soldier’s voice cracked as he called out to her and she turned, letting out a scream. Steadying herself and holding back tears, the woman introduced the man next to her as her fiance. She told the soldier she had been told he died at war and so she moved on.

The heartbroken soldier stormed out of the house and drove off on his motorcycle. The last thing his former love saw was the light from his headlight speeding across the bend. No one knows exactly what happened after, maybe it was his tears blurring his vision, maybe he was blinded by the oncoming cars on the bridge, or maybe he did it to himself.

But, the soldier crashed head-first into a car and was immediately killed. The driver jumped out of his car and saw the soldier’s body and his motorcycle fall into the ditch below. Hours later as the sun came up and several came to search for the soldier, they quickly found his body but his head and the headlight of his motorcycle were never found.

The Spook Light

In the years following the tragic accident many started to report a hovering light on the Slemmer-Portage bridge appearing only on March 21st. Others were reportedly chased by the light until they were off the bridge and some have even claimed to see what looks like a ghostly headless man on a motorcycle just behind the light.

The reports became no prominent the bridge and the road it’s on became known as Spook Light Road. To this day many claim to see the light appearing, not just on March 21st but, on random occasions and especially on Halloween.

Other Versions

As with most legends with unnamed characters and those with very little way of verifying it happened, there are many different variations to the legend. The biggest variations often come from how the soldier discovered his girlfriend was with another man.

Some versions say he spotted her kissing a man while he was driving toward her home. In these versions, the soldier never stops and instead races past them and comes to crash on the bridge. Other versions have him sneaking up to her and hugging her from behind before she tells him about her new fiance, these versions don’t mention that she was told of the soldier’s death.

Finally, one last variation to his discovery of her infidelity has the soldier returning and visiting his girlfriend who is indifferent to his arrival. After several minutes of professing his love, she finally admits to him that she is engaged to someone else.

The other big variation to the legend is how the soldier was decapitated. Most don’t say how, some say there was barbed wire along the bridge, and yet another says he lost his head as he hit the edge of the bridge. In one version, the soldier isn’t decapitated and doesn’t die immediately, instead, he lies dying waiting for help, and dies from exposure.

One last important variation comes from where the bridge actually is with some versions saying it happened on a small unnamed bridge on Fought Road. Some versions don’t name the bridge which makes sense as the Slemmer-Portage Bridge wasn’t around in the late 1910s. These versions say it’s the road that is haunted but since it’s not named it makes it difficult to discover if the legend even happened.

But Did it Happen?

Looking through newspapers from the 1900s to today there doesn’t appear to be any legitimacy to this legend. There are no reports of a motorcyclist losing his head in an accident near a bridge and the first time this legend appears in the paper is in 1966 when the bridge was being replaced.

Searching the legend through books and other articles online just gives more variations but nothing helpful to pinpoint where the legend may have taken place or any way to prove it happened.

This most likely means the legend was told orally for years and could have been attributed to any number of locations. Interestingly in Ottawa County, Ohio, there were several instances in the 1920s of people reporting a strange light or “spook light” on Lindsey road. But this light is attributed to a different legend.

Apparently this light had been spotted for decades before and articles kept appearing in the paper well into the 1940s. But when it comes to the Elmore rider there doesn’t appear to be anything anywhere to help prove it happened. For now, the story of the Elmore rider is nothing more than an urban legend.