Acid Bridge and the Seven Gates of Hell

I must confess, I’m a bad Kahok. While the fact forever remains that I graduated class of 2004 from Collinsville High School – the high school of champions – prior to the research for this blog, I’d only ever attempted to drive through the Seven Gates of Hell once and that was a solid fifteen years ago. Adding to the shame I’ve brought the great purple and white, I thought all this time that Acid Bridge was one of the seven gates rather than its own separate entity of terror. How in the world has a self-proclaimed horror fanatic like myself remained so incredibly ignorant all these years of one of the St. Louis areas most chilling urban legends!?! Well, after driving last week with two of my best friends through each of the seven gates and over Acid Bridge, my ignorance has been abolished and my knowledge of this urban legend has finally been ratified.

The Seven Gates of Hell are essentially a series of seven railroad trestles along Lebanon Road in Collinsville, Illinois. These “gates,” as they’ve been coined, were all constructed in the late 1800’s as the railroads expanded into the former mining town. Despite nothing more than genuine structural beginnings, the gates have evolved – or devolved, depending on one’s point of view – into an area that has become (urban) legendary for hangings, Ku Klux Klan meetings, satanic rituals, and even further paranormal activities. The gates themselves have all been covered in graffiti and some deterioration can be observed, they’re all also heavily surrounded by wooded areas upping the creepiness and conceiving the perfect place for the birth of an urban legend.

Unlike The Legend of the Piasa Bird or The Scratching of the SLAM Effigy urban legends, this particular one has a handful of variations. Difficult to say which of these is the original, but it’s said the origin of any can be traced back roughly a half century.

One version says you need to drive through all seven gates in numerical order and pass through the seventh one at exactly midnight in order to open the Gates of Hell. Once you’ve managed this impeccably timed journey, Hell’s portal will be opened and a pack of Hellhounds will emerge to drag you down to Hell.

Another rendition states that should you go in reverse order, beginning with gates seven and ending with one, a tear in reality will appear and allow you to merely look into the depths of Hell. I’d say this is definitely the safer option between the two should you choose to pursue either. I’d much rather just glance down at Hell from afar versus being dragged there by Satan’s puppies.

The third variation of this tale is nearly the exact same as the first one, however, you pass through gate one at midnight and upon finishing through gate seven at whatever time you end up doing so, you’ll open the portal to Hell and be dragged there by the Hellhounds.

Anyone else find it incredibly interesting that midnight is the chosen time for each of these tales when everyone knows that the witching hour, or devil’s hour, is always between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m.? It’s during this hour that witches, demons, ghosts, and all the spooky sort are said to be at their most powerful and black magic is thought to be most effective. I don’t particularly want to open the portal to Hell during any hour, but I know for a fact I definitely don’t want to do it between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning! Who even knows what beasts one would unleash!?!

In addition to the overarching urban legend, many of the individual gates have developed legends within themselves.

Gate Two has the saddest stories tied to it. There’s a particularly gruesome tale of a young African-American boy being chased by Ku Klux Klan members through the woods. It’s said that the KKK thugs trapped and caught the boy at Gate Two and ended up hanging him there. Another version of this tale deletes the KKK and instead supplements it with a lover’s quarrel, where two feuding boys are fighting over the same girl and one of the young men ends up hanging the other. Then in a moment of regret and fear, he hangs himself. Legend has it that if you drive through the gate around midnight, you can see the body of a boy swinging from it.

Gates Three and Four are known as the “Twin Gates” due to their close proximity to one another. There is a never-ending barrage of satanic ritual and animal sacrifice stories that surround these gates. The area between the two gates is unbelievably still and strangely quiet. It’s a heavily secluded area in general, but the immense surrounding of the woods makes the whole ambiance of the area quite chilling. The final piece of the rumor puzzle here is that if you stop your car and wait patiently between the two gates, you’ll soon hear a car fast approaching, but as you expect to see one come racing towards you, it never arrives, just its sound.

In my research, I learned that Gate Six is often confused for Acid Bridge – they’re NOT the same as I thought all my life till last week! There’s a story from the 1970’s that says a couple kids decided to drop some acid before attempting a drive through the seven gates. One ending of this story has the kids wrecking their vehicle into Gate Six and burning alive in a fiery crash. The alternate ending says the kids ended up getting lost while trying to find Gate Six and instead arrived at Acid Bridge where they mistakenly drive off and perish in a fiery crash. Both stories share the same urban legend in that you can often see a ghostly reenactment of the crash at either site, Gate Six or Acid Bridge.

While the Seven Gates of Hell dominate the urban legend and are immensely tense and terrorizing, Acid Bridge was the true highlight for me on last week’s drive. Like with the Gates of Hell, there are a handful of legends surrounding Acid Bridge.

One such story tells of the death of a teenager. Legend has it that one night, several decades ago, a group of kids were out partying on the bridge and all were using acid when one of them took out a gun and started shooting randomly causing a bullet to ricochet from the railings and strike another teen in the head. In a moment of sheer panic, the others tossed the shot one’s body over the bridge and into the creek below where the teen drowned in the shallow waters. While there we definitely saw a place on the bridge that was covered in bullet holes, which certainly lends some potential validity to this sad story.

Another tale that looms over the bridge is that of a young girl said to be about eight who can be seen sitting on the bridge – alone – staring off into the woods. She supposedly died in a car crash that occurred on the bridge sometime long ago. Apparently if you cover your back bumper with flour or some such substance and park your car on the bridge, you will be able to get out and find a child’s handprints all over the back of your vehicle after just a few minutes of waiting.

The final story correlates somewhat to the legend surrounding the Twin Gates. It’s been said that there’s a phantom car that will chase off anyone idling on the bridge. When one stops on the bridge at night, the headlights of a phantom vehicle can be seen racing towards you. As you maneuver to flee from the bridge, the phantom vehicle will allegedly chase you for a mile or so down the road before completely disappearing all together.

Now while we weren’t there late enough to encounter any paranormal activity or phantom car chases, there was a large truck that raced over the bridge while we were on there taking pictures and what have you that gave us quite a thrill because he had to plow through twice given the fact that the road was closed following the bridge and he was forced to turn around and double back towards us. This was by no means scary, but knowing the urban legends, it added a little thrill to the moment.

There are also rumors of extreme occult activity in this area. Plenty of people have claimed to have seen other individuals standing out in the woods or along the banks of the creek staring back at them as they do whatever it is they’re doing on the bridge. Thankfully we didn’t experience or see anything like this. Others have claimed to have seen torch lights moving about the woods and the entire bridge itself has been set on fire a handful of times – which we saw a couple spots where fires had previously been held. There are also a plethora of unconfirmed rumors of rapes, abductions, and murders all having happened on or near Acid Bridge.

The scariest part of the legend surrounding Acid Bridge for me though was the series of reports where people would park their vehicle on either side of the bridge and leave it running while they got out to take pictures or check out the scene. Then when they would return to their car, they would discover after driving a little ways away that someone had crawled in and had been hiding in the back seat since the bridge. We parked our car and did just this, but thankfully, Alan stayed inside, thereby eliminating the chance of anyone sneaking inside our back seat. Reminds me of the opening scene of the horror classic, Urban Legend and that’s one scene I would like to ensure remains in my movies and NEVER in my life.

Directions to the Seven Gates of Hell:

Take West Main Street in Collinsville east to Lebanon Road and turn left. Keep traveling till you’re out of town. Then you’ll come up on Gate One.

After passing through Gate One, you’ll turn immediately to your left and onto Lockman Road to find Gate Two. DO NOT follow Lebanon Road to the right otherwise you’ll completely miss Gate Two.

Follow Lockman Road through Gate Two and at a fork in the road, go right towards the Twin Gates of Three and Four. This puts you on Longhi Road.

Remain on Longhi Road till you get back on Lebanon Road. Follow Lebanon Road for quite a while until you come up on South Liberty Road where you’ll turn left. Take South Liberty Road for a while longer till you pass through Gate Five.

South Liberty Road runs into West Mill Creek Road, when you get here, take it to the right and Gate Six will arrive soon thereafter.

Remain on West Mill Creek Road as you cross over Troy/O’Fallon Road when it becomes East Mill Creek Road. When you arrive at Blackjack Road take it to the left till you see Bauer Road, which you’ll follow to the right. Gate Seven is on Bauer Road.

Acid Bridge itself can be found on Lebanon Road, which is why so many have confused it for the sixth gate.

Well, there you have the urban legends of Acid Bridge and the Seven Gates of Hell. By far the most chilling and terrifying of the three urban legends explored thus far on my blog. While I never felt fearful or scared during our drive, we did do this around 5:00 in the afternoon, so night hadn’t quite fallen upon us and there were enough other vehicles on the road where we never felt secluded or alone. Not going to lie though, as I sat here and typed all this up, I did give myself a yearning to travel the road at night, but I’m thinking like 9:30 or 10:00 – definitely not midnight or thereafter. I love horror and a good scare, but there is no way in Hell you’re going to find me out that way that late. I love urban legends, but I have absolutely zero desire to ever become one!

As always, THANK YOU so much for viewing! I do hope you enjoyed this terrifying tale! If this urban legend sent shivers down your spine or you’ve heard something about Acide Bridge and the Seven Gates of Hell that I neglected to mention, then PLEASE share with me below! I LOVE reading and responding to your comments! I’ll be back next week with another all-new blog, so until then, I wish you all, all the best!