The bridge most often named in the Elmore Rider stories crosses Mud Creek (also called Muddy Creek), a branch of the Portage River, a few miles southeast of Elmore in Ottawa County. One version places it on Fought Road. Another calls it the Slemmer-Portage bridge. It is a low country span. The figure attached to it is a headless motorcyclist, a World War I veteran. There is no name for him, and no accident report that places a decapitated rider dying on any bridge near Elmore.
The story says he left for the war after his girlfriend promised to wait. He came home on March 21, riding a new motorcycle. He cut the engine and rolled up to her house to surprise her. She was wearing a wedding ring. He fled, speeding into the night. On the bridge he lost control. The versions of how he died differ. In one he hit a barbed-wire fence. In another he went over the railing. In a third he struck a car. In all of them his head was severed and was never found. The anniversary is given as March 21. On that night, and sometimes on Halloween, people park near the bridge, flash their headlights three times, and honk three times. A single bright light is said to appear near a farmhouse, race toward the bridge, and vanish at the midpoint. Some claim to see the headless rider himself. Richard Gill, then a student at Bowling Green, said he and a friend saw the light on March 21, 1969. They stretched a string across the road and the light broke it. A 1989 WTOL report included Gill describing the light passing through the car. Local historians and a Fringe Paranormal researcher who checked the Elmore Public Library found no contemporary newspaper account of a motorcycle accident with a decapitation near the town. The first printed version of the full story appears in the mid-1960s, around the time the bridge was being replaced. Earlier light stories existed. The headless rider and the March 21 date were added later.
What is documented is a low bridge over Mud Creek near Elmore, a mid-1960s local legend of a headless WWI motorcyclist, and a 1969 account by Richard Gill of a light that answered the three-flash, three-honk ritual. The accident itself is not in the public record. The light and the ritual are the ones the story supplies.
No clear public photograph of the specific Mud Creek span is readily available in the sources.
Relevant links
Facts-Chology: The Spook Light of the Headless Elmore Rider — the 1966 newspaper appearance and the absence of earlier reportsThis bridge was built in the early 1900’s and is located in this city of Elmore, Ohio. The bridge runs on Toledo street or Ohio 51 over the Portage River. The haunting is said to be attributed to a motorcyclist who was involved in an accident on this bridge on March 21, possibly in 1918–the exact year is unknown.
Ohio.org: The Tale of the Elmore Rider — the WWI version and the March 21 ritual
Fringe Paranormal: The Legend of the Elmore Ghost Rider — the library search that found no accident record
Ghosts of Ohio: Elmore Ghost Rider — Richard Gill’s 1969 account
Read more about Ohio hauntings at GhostsofOhio.org