The Colorado Street Bridge: Pasadena's Suicide Bridge and the Ghosts of the Arroyo Seco

The Bridge That Became a Landmark of Tragedy

The Colorado Street Bridge was designed by the J.A.L. Waddell firm of Kansas City, Missouri and constructed between July 1912 and 1913. Spanning 1,467 feet across the Arroyo Seco canyon in Pasadena — a deep, wooded gorge connecting the San Gabriel Mountains to the Los Angeles River — the bridge reaches a height of approximately 150 feet above the canyon floor. Engineer John Drake Mercereau conceived a curving alignment that solved difficult foundational challenges and gave the bridge its distinctive Beaux-Arts appearance, with ornate arched supports, decorative lamp posts, and detailed railings. It was immediately celebrated as an engineering achievement and a regional landmark.

The Legend of the Entombed Worker

Before the bridge even opened, the first legend was already forming. During construction in 1912, a worker allegedly fell from the scaffolding into a freshly poured concrete support column. Whether due to the speed of the pour, the depth of the shaft, or the chaos of the construction site, his co-workers concluded he could not be rescued in time and allowed the pour to continue. The worker's body, the legend holds, remains encased in one of the bridge's concrete pillars to this day. There is no official documentation of this incident in the bridge's construction records — but the story has persisted for over a century and is regarded by folklorists as a foundational piece of the bridge's dark mythology.

The Suicides Begin: Depression-Era Despair

The first recorded death by suicide at the bridge occurred in November 1919. By the time the Great Depression devastated Los Angeles in the early 1930s, the bridge had acquired its lasting nickname. In the worst years of the Depression, approximately 50 people died at the bridge, sometimes at a rate of several per month. The frequency was such that the Pasadena Fire Department stationed personnel nearby, and newspapers began referring to it openly as "Suicide Bridge." The despair of the Depression gave the bridge its darkest chapter, and it never fully escaped the association.

Myrtle Ward and Her Baby (1937)

On a morning in 1937, 22-year-old Myrtle Ward climbed over the railing of the Colorado Street Bridge with her infant child and jumped. What happened next was, by any measure, extraordinary: the baby survived, caught by a tree growing from the canyon wall below the bridge. Myrtle Ward did not. The incident was widely reported in the Los Angeles Times. Ward's ghost is among the most frequently cited at the bridge — witnesses describe a young woman in 1930s clothing walking the bridge at night and looking over the railing, apparently searching for something below.

The Reported Hauntings

The most commonly reported paranormal phenomena at the Colorado Street Bridge include: a ghostly woman who climbs over the railing and appears to jump, only to vanish before reaching the canyon floor; a male figure in glasses seen beneath the bridge who whispers "her fault" to passersby; unexplained crying emanating from the Arroyo Seco below after dark; a sensation of being watched or followed while crossing the bridge alone; and, most disturbing, the reported presence of the entombed construction worker's spirit — said to call out to troubled visitors with an invitation to jump. Local folklore traditions collected by the USC Digital Folklore Archives include multiple student testimonies from the surrounding region consistent with these reports.

Prevention and Persistence

The bridge underwent a $27 million renovation in 1993, during which a suicide barrier was installed along the railing. The renovation reduced but did not eliminate the deaths. A total of more than 150 deaths by suicide have occurred at the bridge since 1919. Signs with crisis helpline information were installed in 2013. The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places, and as of the 2010s, discussions were underway for a permanent higher barrier. Musician Lana Del Rey filmed a portion of her 2012 music video for "Summertime Sadness" at the bridge, in which actress Jaime King climbs the railing.