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bragg road
light |
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The Bragg
Road Light, also known as the Big Thicket Light, has
mystified
observers for nearly fifty years. The light seems to sway
back and
forth, as if someone were carrying a gas lantern. It begins
as a flickering
yellow light in the distance and changes to a
brilliant
white as it approaches. Then it turns bright red and
disappears.
Bragg Road was once the gravel bed for Santa Fe
railroad
tracks that ran through the town of Bragg, which was
served
by railroad workers and their families in 1901. The town
was torn
down and tracks dismantled in 1934, after the railroad
discontinued
the route. Legends explaining the light are plentiful.
Some say
the light is the ghost: of Jake Murphy, a brakeman beheaded
when he
fell underneath a train here. Others tell of four Mexican
laborers
killed by a foreman who wanted their money. Or perhaps the
light is
a lantern carried by the phantom of a hunter lost long ago
in the
bogs. Whatever the explanation, the phenomenon has been
observed
by hundreds of witnesses.
location
Saratoga is in Hardin County, thirty-nine
miles west ofBeaumont
on Highway
105. Bragg Road is an eightmile-long dirt pathway
through
a thicket that lies between the Neches and Trinity rivers.
From Saratoga,
follow Highway 770 west for two miles to
Highway
787. Turn north on Highway 787 and travel 3.5 miles to
Bragg Road.
Information can be obtained by calling the Big Thicket
Museum,
at 409-274-5000.
