Donkey Lady

The Donkey Lady Bridge is a scary urban legend in San Antonio, Texas about a woman who was burned in a fire and went insane.

Anyone who has lived in San Antonio has heard the legend of the Donkey Lady. As the story goes, back in the fifties, a young woman had been in a fire that her husband started in their house. The woman lost two childen in that fire, and she was left horribly disfigured.

It was said that when she ran screaming from the house, she fell to the ground and her arms and legs were so badly burned that they snapped off, leaving her with blackened stumps for limbs. They looked like hooves. Her face was so scorched by the flames that it melted and her skin got drooped and baggy, making her look like a horse or a donkey.

Disfigured and totally insane, she stayed mostly in the rural areas, living under bridges and terrorized anyone who approached her home. She lurked in the dark woods near her home and pounced on unsuspecting victims.

All the children in the area heard the story and spent dark summer nights imagining exactly what she looked like.

One family, a father and two boys, were passing through San Antonio on a camping trip and made the mistake of stopping near Donkey Lady Bridge to set up their tents and do some fishing.

The group pulled up to a weed infested area off a dirt road and began to make camp. The two boys were unloading the pickup truck while the father found a suitable spot for the tent. While unloading the truck, one of the boys heard a rustling in the weeds nearby. He told his brother, who in turn called out to their father.

The three of them watched the tall weeds beneath the trees bend under the weight of what was apparently a large animal. Then they heard an odd snorting sound and heard hooves clomping on gravel. The three of them got scared and quickly threw the tent, sleeping bags, and gear into the back of their truck.

While packing up, the father spotted something out of the corner of his eye, as the weeds shook nearby. The thing hiding in the bushed seemed to be heading for the road, the only exit, as if it was trying to cut them off.

The father urgently shouted for the boys to get in the truck, fast. All three of them were in the truck in a flash and the father started it up. He put the truck in gear and was just pulling out onto the road when something large and black burst out of the weeds and landed right in front of them.

A second later, a horrible apparition bounded up onto their hood and began shrieking at them and pounding its hooves on the windshield, trying to break through the glass. It was the ugliest thing any of them had ever seen. They swore the wretched creature looked like a cross between a donkey and a human being.

The father floored the accelerator and the truck peeled out onto the road. The monstrous creature was thrown off the hood of the truck and into the ditch by the roadside. They said it almost looked like a wild animal with an incredible look of rage and hatred in its eyes. Without stopping to look back, they burned rubber and drove at high speed to the nearest police station.

Inside, the wide-eyed family told their story to the police. The police refused to believe them, of course, so the father demanded that they come outside and take a look at his truck.

The windshield was shattered and cracked in many places and the hood was scuffed, scraped and dented with deep hoof marks. The policeman was speechless and when he finally regained his composure, the only thing he could say was “Looks like you had a run-in with the Donkey Lady.”