Cryptid Corner: the Pope Lick Monster

“I can fancy what you saw. Yes; it is horrible enough; but after all, it is an old story,

an old mystery played…. Such forces cannot be named, cannot be spoken, cannot be

imagined except under a veil and a symbol, a symbol to the most of us appearing a

quaint, poetic fancy, to some a foolish tale. But you and I, at all events, have known

something of the terror that may dwell in the secret place of life, manifested under

human flesh; that which is without form taking to itself a form. Oh, Austin, how can it

be? How is it that the very sunlight does not turn to blackness before this thing, the

hard earth melt and boil beneath such a burden?”

~~The Great God Pan

The Pope Lick Monster of Louisville, Kentucky, is not itself celebrated, commemorated, or memorialized. It’s feared, even by those who don’t believe it exists. However, the creature is inextricably linked to a specific object in Louisville, one that draws visitors to the monster as effectively as a historical plaque or statue: a train trestle bridge

The train trestle was built in the late nineteenth century and is owned by the Norfolk Southern Railway. It passes over Pope Lick Creek and South Pope Lick Road at the edge of the Rolleigh Peterson Educational Forest in eastern Louisville. At its highest, the 772-foot-long trestle is a deadly ninety feet above the ground. It looks abandoned and rickety, but some two dozen freight trains cross it each day. And that’s not the only thing dangerous about the bridge.

The Pope Lick Monster is said to live under the trestle like the troll in the Three Billy Goats Gruff fairytale. The beast is a Kentucky-fried version of the Greek satyr, a goat-human hybrid, although some sources describe the monster as half sheep, half human. It’s often depicted by artists as a bipedal, furry humanoid with a goat’s face and curving ram’s horns, although in some accounts the monster is headless, as if its head had been severed at the neck by the wheels of a locomotive.

But the trestle isn’t just the home of the Pope Lick Monster: it’s also the monster’s murder weapon. The goatman lures people onto the trestle by either hypnotizing them or mimicking human voices. Once the victim finds themselves trapped atop the vertiginous bridge, they are killed either by oncoming trains or by the long drop to the ground below. Even driving underneath the bridge is dangerous, as the Pope Lick Monster has been said to drop from the trestle to attack cars.

But the thing about this monster is that, even though it may only exist in the realm of urban legend, it has caused real deaths. Every couple of years somebody dies on that bridge. Trains are often unable to stop in time, and anybody who finds themselves on the tracks at the wrong moment will have nowhere to go but under the wheels of the train or off the side of the bridge. Tragically, these deaths are often of people who went atop the bridge looking for the Pope Lick Monster, making them actual victims of the creature.

The last victim on record died in May 2019. Two teenage girls, one fifteen and one sixteen, were on the tracks when a train crossed. One was killed immediately, and the other survived after being taken to the hospital in critical condition. Whether they were up there looking for a monster is uncertain, but probable: part of the legend holds that walking across the bridge can summon the monster.

But another death three years earlier was more directly connected to the Pope Lick Monster. In April 2016, two Ohio tourists, 26 year-old Roquel Bain and her boyfriend, 41 year-old David Knee, were on their way to the Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, a famous destination for those who like to ghost hunt or explore spooky, abandoned sites. Before heading to the asylum, they decided to check out the infamous Pope Lick Monster bridge. When the train came speeding across the trestle, Bain was hit by the train and fell to her death, while Knee was able to survive by wrapping his arms and legs around the edge of the bridge. He was barely able to hold on as the structure vibrated ferociously.

You can see why local authorities try to keep people away. A trail beneath the bridge is safe (unless the goatman jumps off the bridge onto you), but authorities have fenced off the entrance to the bridge, festooning it with signs. There are criminal penalties for interfering with the railroad.

Beyond the other benefits of memorializing one’s local cryptids, there’s a safety reason to erect a plaque or statue dedicated to the Pope Lick goatman—and Louisville should place it as far as they can from the terrors of the trestle.