This is an abandoned bridge crossing the choctawhatchee river.
Make sure to check out the historic marker nearby describing the haunting history of this place.
One of the South's most intriguing ghost
stories swirls around a bridge over the
Choctawhatchee River at the town of Newton,
Alabama. It is a story of the Civil War, the
lynching of an unfortunate man named Bill
Sketoe (or Sketo) and a "hole that will not
stay filled."
Sketoe's Hole was a Dale County landmark
for many years and became quite famous
after Kathryn Tucker Windham wrote about it
in her book 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey.
As the story goes, Bill Sketoe was a Southern
soldier who came home to care for his sick
wife during the darkest days of the Civil War.
He supposedly had hired a substitute to fight
on his behalf and was on his way home with
medicine for his wife when he ran into men
from Captain Joseph R. Breare's company,
usually described as the Dale County "Home
Guard," near the Choctawhatchee River just
across from the town of Newton.
Breare and his men accused Sketoe of
desertion, a charge that he denied. Despite
his claims of innocence, they proceeded to
hang him from the limb of a nearby water
oak. His last words were said to be a prayer
for God to forgive his killers.
Sketoe was a tall man and his feet touched
the ground, preventing his death. One of the
citizen soldiers, however, used his crutch do
dig out a hole beneath the hanging man.
According to the legend, the hole remained
long after Sketoe's body was removed. Local
people came to regard it with a sense of
horror. They would fill the hole with trash and
debris, but would return the next day to find it
once again swept clean. The story grew that
the ghost of Bill Sketoe still swung from the
tree and its dragging feet cleared the hole on
a nightly basis.