1961: Fate Magazine. April 1961 page 22-3 by Curtis Fuller.

Note from me: A web search says that there is now a Lamar Institute of Technology, part of the Texas state colege system. There is also a Lamar University in the same town of Beaumont. I cant find an Edwin Hays there, though this kind of search probably doesnt mean much. It is now 40 years after this article and 'Hays' probably retired by now. It might be worth trying to get an old catalog from this place or contacting them at: 855 East Lavaca P.O. Box 10043 Beaumont, TX 77710 Phone: 409.880.8321 800.950.6989 to see if he was on the faculty.

Admitting that the Marfa Lights are indeed entrancing and even mildly mystical, the report closes (rather incongruously for an admittedly skeptical writer) with: "A reminder that caution must be taken. Because what we saw four nights in Saratoga and three nights in Marfa did not go out of the bounds of the ordinary does not mean that the extraordinary has never occurred in either place." (Lindee, Herbert; "Ghost Lights of Texas," Skeptical Inquirer, 16:400, 1992.)

From Sam Houstons Electric Cooperative page (http://www.samhouston.net/who%20we%20are/sites_to_see_hardin.asp)

Ghost Road Its original name is the Bragg Road, named after the town that was in that area at one time. The name Ghost Road was attached in this century after a number of tales that center around a ghostly light that is said to be seen on certain occasions at night. One story about the light is that it is a mystical phenomenon that frequents areas where treasure is buried and that Spanish conquistadores are looking for the golden treasure. Another story is that the light is a little bit of fire never extinguished after another famous historical spot in the county, the Kaiser Burnout, or it could be the ghost of a man shot during the Burnout. Yet another explanation of the phenomenon is about a railroad man who was decapitated in a train wreck when the railroad was still in place. The light is the body of the man looking for his head which was never found. The light could also be the night hunter who got lost in the Big Thicket decades ago. The hunter still wanders, searching for a way out of the Thicket. To reach the Ghost Road, take U.S. 69 at Kountze to FM 326, from there take the turn onto FM 770 which will take you diretly to Saratoga. Go through Saratoga and take a right on FM 787 turn, the Ghost Road is not far off the beaten path.

This is from the South East Texas Local Sites of Interest page(http://www.setx.com/ktzchamber/sites.htm) No author indicated:

Bragg Road - The Ghost Light "I went down ol' Bragg Road, went from end to end. I'm not superstitious,But I ain't going back again" James Autrey What do the Bermuda Triangle, the Pyramids in Egypt and the Ghost Light on Bragg Road in Hardin County, Texas have in common? They all follow the 32nd Parallel that circles the earth, and their causes remain a mystery. Originally constructed as a railroad connection from oil rich Saratoga, Texas to Bragg, Texas, Bragg Road is the site of the Ghost Light. The Light, was allegedlly report to be seen as early as Civil War times. Anyone wanting to search for the ghost should travel west from Kountze on FM 1293. Turn left on Bragg Raod approx. 8 miles west of Honey Island. ARE YOU AFRAID OF GHOSTS?? ~THEN YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LIGHT~ Paraphrased from "The Ghost Light on Bragg Road" by Buddy Moore

From the Houston Chronicle 1999: (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/evergreen.hts/travel/tx/piney/411611)

Nature's heaven just a few miles up the road By JEANNIE KEVER Copyright 1999 Houston Chronicle Dec. 26, 1999

BIG THICKET NATIONAL PRESERVE -- Spider webs lace the trails. It's a harmless enough evocation of nature. But then park ranger Merle King begins to speak. "We do have mountain lions. You probably won't see any, and they'll probably run away from you, but you may need to look big." He demonstrates, windmilling his arms in "get away" fashion. "We do have feral pigs. They'll probably run away from you, unless you get between a sow and her piglets. Then you might need to shinny up a tree until they go away." You're how far from Houston, where the wild hogs drive SUVs and shinnying up a tree could get you in serious trouble? Call it 120 miles and another biosphere. The Big Thicket is 86,000 acres of forest, meadow and swamp scattered across 12 parcels of land and water just north of Beaumont. It's wilderness incarnate. No camper hookups. No snack bars. No plastic-glass shields separating human from beast. Just you and the elements. Fifty-five inches of rain in an average year. Steamy summers, chilly and overcast winters, the occasional flash of heaven in spring and fall. Mosquitoes almost year-round. The Big Thicket is not your stereotypical tourist attraction, but the 65,000 people who visit each year find an enveloping solitude and a biological diversity unmatched in North America. It wasn't so much the number of plants and animals here that inspired Congress to create the nature preserve in 1974. Other places have more wildlife or rarer specimens. What draws attention is the diversity that nature offers -- roadrunners zipping past flowering dogwood, armadillos sharing space with great blue herons. Southeastern swamps collide with Eastern hardwood forests, Midwestern plains and Southwestern deserts. Bogs abut sandhills. This confluence of environments is attributed to the ice age, when glaciers pushed many species southward. When the glaciers retreated, some of the immigrants remained in this new land. The Alabama and Coushatta Indians hunted along the edges of the Big Thicket, but the area was essentially uncharted when white settlers arrived in the 1800s. Logging of pine and cypress trees sped the encroachment, and nearby oil strikes at the turn of the century further hastened development. Part of that development involved a railroad line, long since torn out. But its legacy is an integral component of the woods' eerie atmosphere. Bragg Road, a narrow Piney Woods road linking FM 787 and FM 1293 northwest of Saratoga, is ground zero for the spooky stories. For decades visitors have insisted that a floating ball of light haunts the road, a mystery featured in National Geographic magazine and on Japanese television. Legend claims the light is from a lantern carried by the ghost of a railroad man beheaded in an accident. Skeptics call it swamp gas or the refraction of headlights from the highway at the end of Bragg Road. Believe what you will, and step into the dense underbrush, where the soft slap-slap-slap of oars sluicing through muddy waterways is punctuated only by the buzz of insects and the calls that draw thousands of birders to witness the migrations each spring and fall. Anyone with a Texas fishing license may try the creeks, small lakes and rivers in the Big Thicket. Hunting is allowed on about half of the preserve. But most people headed for the Big Thicket limit their interactions with the natives to the visual, packing binoculars and insect repellent rather than rifles and ammunition. Canoeing allows you to lose yourself, far from roads and even from the trails that traverse the land. Five outfitters rent canoes and kayaks in the area, steering people most often to Village Creek or the Neches River. The most ambitious trips take several days. Easier outings can be completed in a few hours' paddling and drifting on Village Creek, which begins near the Alabama and Coushatta Indian Reservation and joins the Neches 60 miles away. On weekdays you may have the water to yourself, accompanied only by the bluegills and bass swimming below and the crows, cardinals, herons, kingfishers and pileated woodpeckers on the banks and overhead. The tea-colored water -- it takes its hue from the tannin released by plants below the surface -- moves slowly except after the occasional flood, making it comfortable for beginners. Frequent sandbars provide convenient stopping places for picnics or to absorb the otherworldliness of the junglelike surroundings. Several outfitters provide delivery and pickup service, making it easy to drift and float without worrying about logistics. Just remember where to get out. Landlubbers may prefer to hoof it. There are 45 miles of trails in four units, ranging from two half-mile trails to an 18-mile loop trail in the Big Sandy Creek Unit, the only trail open to horses and all-terrain bicycles. All others are for hikers only. The Pitcher Plant Trail and the Sundew Nature Trail are accessible by wheelchair. The former is named for a carnivorous plant that grows in the preserve; it and three other carnivorous plants flourish along the Sundew trail. But plants, even the meat-eating variety, aren't the excitement most hikers crave. Birding is a major draw, but other wildlife can be eye-catching, too. Visitors' sightings, posted outside the information center just north of Kountze, reveal the presence of deer, coral snakes, woodpeckers and, indeed, feral pigs. That, coupled with King's warnings, is enough to add a sense of foreboding to the sound of unseen critters crashing through the brush, and relief when the flash of a white-tipped tail reveals a deer dashing from the trail. Even the Kirby Nature Trail, an easy hike through Southern magnolia, loblolly pine, basket oak, black cherry and Spanish red oak just behind the visitor center, has an air of mystery. The trail meanders through the Village Creek floodplain, at one point skirting the creek and the steel-and-wood bridge that spans it. The creek is shallow and muddy after the summer drought, and buried logs emerge like some ancient species of alligator. Ferns grow wild along mossy tree limbs, and tiny toads, butterflies and grasshoppers skitter away at the sound of something larger moving just out of sight. It is dark and primal, sunlight only occasionally breaking through the foliage to dapple the ground. Logging trucks barreling down U.S. 69 just a few miles away are out of sight and earshot. Only the mosquitoes remind you of home. For more information about the Big Thicket National Preserve, call 409-246-2337.

From the Handbook of Texas web site (http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/BB/lxb1.html):

BIG THICKET LIGHT. The Big Thicket light (or the Saratoga light) is a ghostly light that periodically appears at night on the Old Bragg Road that runs through the heart of the Big Thicket in Hardin County.

Bragg Road was originally a seven-mile bed for a Santa Fe branchline from Bragg Station, on what is now Farm Road 1293, to Saratoga. The rails were laid in 1901 and pulled in 1934, but the bed remained and became a well used road through some of the densest woods in the Big Thicket.

The Big Thicket light was reported while the tracks were still down. In summer 1960 Archer Fullingim,qv editor and publisher of the Kountze News, began running front page stories speculating on the nature of the light; these stories were picked up and carried in metropolitan newspapers in Texas and elsewhere. Light seers visited Bragg Road by the hundreds. They described the light, disagreeing as to its color or characteristics, but agreeing that a ghostly light of some sort frequented the road.

The lights were variously rationalized as the reflections of car lights going in to Saratoga, patches of low-grade gas, a reflection of foxfire or swamp fire, or the figment of hysterical imaginations. More romantic explanations produced stories about local history. The light was a mystical phenomenon that typically frequented areas where treasure was buried, and some early Spanish conquistadors had cached a golden hoard in the thicket but had failed to return for it. The light was a little bit of fire that never was extinguished after the Kaiser Burnout or the ghost of a man shot during the burnout, when the Confederate soldiers fired part of the thicket to flush out Jayhawkers who did not choose to fight for the South.

Another story tells of a railroad man who was decapitated in a train wreck on this part of the Saratoga line; they found his body but never could locate his head, and the body continues to roam up and down the right-of-way looking for the lost member. And one tale tells that the light comes from a spectral fire pan carried by a night hunter who got lost in the Big Thicket years ago. He still wanders, never stopping to rest, always futilely searching for a way out of the mud and briars.

The story of the Mexican cemetery tells of a crew of Mexicans who were hired to help cut the right-of-way and lay the tracks. But, rumor has it that the foreman of the road gang, rather than pay them a large amount of accumulated wages, killed the men and kept the money. They were hurriedly interred in the dense woods nearby, from whence come their restless, uneasy souls, clouded in ghostly light to haunt that piece of ground that cost them their lives.

And there is the story of a man who sold his farm and parted with everything that he couldn't pack in a suitcase, to work on the railroad. He was devoted to the line and became a brakeman on the "Saratoga." When the Santa Fe began to cut down on its runs, he found himself without a job or prospects. He died soon after, and his lonesome and troubled spirit still walks the road bed with its brakeman's lantern, the Big Thicket light, looking for the life that left him behind. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Francis E. Abernethy, ed., Tales from the Big Thicket (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1966). Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Francis E. Abernethy

Story 1:

In the National Geographic magazine for October 1974, page 524-528 there is an article about 'Big Thicket of Texas' by Don Moser and photographer Blair Pitman. There is an accompanying 20-minute photo of the light with a 'star trail' in the sky...just one.

The above photo accompanied the National Geographic article (October 1974, page 528) with the caption "Ghost light of the Big Thicket captured in a 20-minute exposure (above) changes color, intensity and position; it has been explained as headlights, or swamp gas, or the ghost of a brakeman in search of his head, severed by a train when the road was a track. The time exposure also records a star's course."

The Bragg Light - Ghost Light in the Big Thicket The following text was taken from an article titled "Big Thicket of Texas" in the October 1974 issue of National Geographic. 'His favorite targets were timber companies who logged in the part of the Thicket he loves, the low swamplands along Black Creek and Pine Island Bayou. He concluded one of his columns by writing, "So who will go out with old Arch Fullingim to the Holy Ghost Thicket and lay down in front of the bulldozers?'' The "Holy Ghost Thicket"? What did he mean, I asked, as we drove out the dark highway toward the road where the mysterious light was supposed to appear. "Now listen at me," he replied. "I can tell I'm in the Big Thicket by the feelin' I get. It's a kind of religion to me. Down there along Black Creek, I call it the Holy Ghost Thicket --you get a mysterious, supernatural feelin'. You look at those yellow and green toadstools, and the overstory of trees, and hear the birds sing. This is where I get the charge, the feeling, the--the kicks." Near the ghost town of Bragg we turned onto a dirt road that ran into the swamps. Archer told me something about the history of the light. A traditional Thicket story was that a railway brakeman had been beheaded by the wheels of a passing train, and his shade still stalked the woods at night with a lantern, searching for his head. There was a time when people came from all over Texas to see it, and it got downright dangerous to travel the road at night, for many of the ghost hunters came armed and shot at any light they saw. "One night," Archer said, "I came out here and this Pentecost preacher was standing on top of a truck with a loudspeaker, saying, 'God has sent this light. The end of the world is coming.' " A mile down the dirt road we parked and turned out the lights. I waited, full of the professional journalist's skepticism. Over the years I'd learned that flying saucers, abominable snowmen, poltergeists, Loch Ness monsters other mysterious phenomena rarely appear in front of reporters. The night was black and full of stars. On both sides of the road the trees pressed in, dark against the sky. In the swamps beyond, frogs chirped and ratcheted. The night air was damp, heavily scented with spring. What was that there, among the trees? Couldn't be a light, I told myself. Eyes playing tricks. Gone now, anyway. Again. And it was a light. Dim, a tiny point. But suddenly it grew brighter, a hot point of light, for all the world like a flashlight back among the trees just to the left of the road. It moved. It grew brighter still (page 528). Then abruptly it dimmed and went out. "That's fantastic." I said the words aloud, I know, because I had a tape recorder with me, turned on. Later, when I played the tape back, I found that I said "That's fantastic" Or "I can't believe it" over and over again through the next half hour, for the light appeared several more times. Now it was a point source of light, like a flashlight beam; then it appeared as a dull glow, the color of a pumpkin. I tried to convince myself that it must be the headlights of automobiles on a blacktop highway eight miles down the Ghost Road, their beams contracted by distance and filtered by the branches of the overarching trees. I promised myself that I'd return to make a proper experiment, to determine once and for all the nature of the mysterious light. Yet at that moment my rational approach seemed a bit like whistling in a graveyard. "Now that's something, ain't it?" Archer Fullingim said when the light appeared again. I am given neither to superstition nor mysticism, but the spirit of the Holy Ghost Thicket laid its cold hands upon me then, and I shivered.

Story 2:

This is identified as an article in the Palestine Herald Press ca May 24, 1995.

The Ghost Road Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories Subject: Ghost Road From: michael.blackmon@woodybbs.com (Michael Blackmon) Date: Wed, 24 May 95 03:58:00 -0500 Hi, I thought some of you might be interested in this article that was in the Palestine Herald Press today:

TOWN URGES TIMBER CUTTERS TO NOT CUT TIMBER ON HAUNTED ROAD

HOUSTON (AP) - The east Texas town of Saratoga is once again up in arms over salesmen who want to cut and sell timber from haunted Ghost Road. But residents want nothing to spoil the spirit world they claim haunts the eight-mile sandy path that seems more like a tunnel with its thick canopy of trees and other foliage. For the fifth time in the last 30 years, Hardin County commissioners have moved to sell the timber, which could add between $60,000 and $100,000 to county coffers. And for the fifth time residents have objected to removing any of the roadside timber that provides the spooky ambience. Hardin County Judge Tom Mayfield has named a committee to hold open hearings and decide on a compromise regarding the road, which has been pictured in National Geographic magazine and on Japanese television. Officially known as Bragg Road, the strip runs straight as a rifle shot from Farm-To-Market Road 787 northwest of Saratoga to Farm-To-Market Road 1293 at the town of Bragg. Saratoga is about 60 miles northeast of Houston. For decades, visitors to Ghost Road have reported seeing a floating ball of light that varies from softball- to basketball-size. Some say the light dances throught the trees, floats along the roadway and sometimes skims above cars. Local legend says the light comes from the lantern carried by the ghost of a train brakeman beheaded in a long-ago accident, or perhaps it is the spirit of a murdered railroad worker. Others say the light is caused by swamp gas or the refraction of car headlights from the highway at the south end of the road. Whatever the reason, the road has long been a popular visiting spot for teenagers. "I never saw the light myself," says Keith Nugent, 38, who lives along the road. "But I know some mighty reputable people who say they've seen it." Like many others, Nugent fears that cutting the timber will destroy the road's character. Counters Judge Mayfield: "It's changing anyway."

Story 3:

This is a page from the 'Things to do in the Thicket' web site (http://www.mediadinamics.com/kountze/html/things_to_do___see.html) no author is cited.

Bragg Road The Ghost Light! Is it the headlight from a long defunct railroad train? Or, is it the headless ghost of a long dead railroad engineer slinging his lantern as he walks through the pine trees? Generations of Kountze and Big Thicket residents have made the journey at night down Bragg road to try and catch a glimpse of the Ghost Light. Originally constructed as a railroad connection from oil rich Saratoga, Texas to Bragg, Texas, the road is now a pathway to superstition. The Ghost Light was alledgedly seen as early as Civil War times. If you have the courage, travel west from Kountze on FM 1293 and then turn left on Bragg Road, about eight miles west of Honey Island. Oh yeah. You have to wait until it is real dark outside. A moonless fall night is best. Don't say I didn't warn you!  

Story 4: Cited in a book:

"The photo on the left was taken without a flash. The same shot, right, with flash. You can read all about this in In the Big Thicket: On the Trail of the Wild Man. "Rob Riggs's new book takes the reader on a wild tour through one of America's weirdest wonderlands. Riggs has produced a great collection on such mysterious Texan wonders as the Marfa and Bragg Road ghost lights, and the Big Thicket's Wild Man, including one delightfully named Ol' Mossyback. This shamanistic journey is well-worth the price of the ticket." - Loren Coleman, author Mysterious America: The Revised Edition

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rob Riggs is a journalist and the former publisher of award-winning community newspapers in Texas. His interest in "ghost lights," "wild man" sightings, and related paranormal phenomena began as a child when he heard tales about them in his hometown in Big Thicket country. Riggs began writing about the subject more than twenty years ago while working as a reporter for the Kountze News. His studies of the phenomena, which have taken him to West Texas, Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, and as far abroad as India, have been featured in the Houston Chronicle and the Beaumont Enterprise. Riggs was a consultant on a ghost lights research project conducted by Professor Yoshi-Hiko Ohtsuki of Waseda University in Tokyo, which was featured on the Nippon television network in Japan; he has also consulted on the subject for the Harvard College Observatory. " (http://www.mysteriousdimension.com/introduction/thebook.htm)