History & local legend
The Mahoning River crossing at Hilltown Bridge, near Hillsville in Lawrence County, has long attracted reports of unexplained lights beneath the bridge. It stood near a Pennsylvania Railroad station, in a landscape also associated with a phantom train seen in fog near Hillsville Road.
The old Hilltown bridge was lost in the flood of 1913. Its replacement opened in 1914 and remained a local landmark until a modern bridge replaced it in 2007. The lights belong to the river crossing’s folklore, while the ghost train is described along the nearby railroad route.
Local accounts place these sightings within the wider collection of Hillsville stories known as Zombieland.
Sources
- Northwestern Pennsylvania Hauntings, archived New Castle–Hillsville Road entry, for the foggy-night train and the separate lights beneath a Mahoning River bridge
- Jeff Bales, Lawrence County Memoirs, Hilltown Bridge, old station, 1914 reconstruction, 2007 replacement and specific report of lights beneath the former span
- Jeff Bales, Lawrence County Memoirs, Zombie Land, independent detail about mysterious lights and the Hilltown site
- HistoricBridges.org, Hilltown Bridge, Churchill Road crossing of the Mahoning River and coordinates
- Federal Railroad Administration, Hillsville Road grade crossing, 141673B
