Texas Town Home To The Haunted Tale Of Tunnel Ghost Monkeys

East Texas is full of history, some of it weird, most of it good. This particular bit of East Texas history could make your skin crawl. Have you ever heard of the tale of the haunted Monkey Bridge and Fuller Park in Athens and the tunnels underneath the city?

Haunted Monkey Bridge and Fuller Park

I just happened to stumble across this searching "Athens Texas" on YouTube. It was titled, "Haunted Monkey Bridge and Fuller Park. Athens TX." The gentleman in the video talked a little about the story of the area.

From there, I went deep down the rabbit hole.

The first thing I came across was the story of Monkey Bridge, also known as Thunder Bridge. In the 1960's, a circus was coming through town on the railroad and the train derailed around the bridge. According to the story, the monkeys that survived the crash escaped from their cages and killed their handlers.

People still claim to hear the handlers screaming and the howls of the monkeys at night along West College Street.

The story continues that Medford Fuller captured the surviving monkeys and held them in cages at Fuller Park. It is said that he performed rituals and did unspeakable things to those monkeys. You can still see these cages in the abandoned park along with the gravestones of Medford Fuller, and his wife, Virginia, in Fuller park.

Tunnels Underneath Athens

It is also told that Fuller Park is home to one of five entrances to a labyrinth of tunnels that form a pentagram underneath Athens. The story of these tunnels says that they lead to a coffin at the center and that they were part of the Underground Railroad. Some believe that the tunnels were used during prohibition, and many believe these tunnels don't exist at all.

Sometimes it's fun to go down a rabbit hole of unexplained phenomena and weird stories in East Texas that most may not even know about.

Source: Athens Review
Source: Tyler Morning Telegraph
Source: The Daytripper
Source: Black of Day

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