Deep in the backwoods of Vinton County, within the confines of the Zaleski State Forest in lower Ohio stands the Moonville Tunnel, a relic from an era long gone. The town it is named for was born when the Marietta and Cincinnati railroad was built through the coal-and-iron rich woods of southeastern Ohio in 1856. At its peak in the 1870s, the town boasted a population of more than 100, almost exclusively miners and their families. There was a row of houses along the railroad tracks, a sawmill just down Raccoon Creek, a post office with their own postmaster, a general store, and a saloon. In its early days the residents of Moonville worked in the Hope Furnace nearby, but later on they turned almost exclusively to mining coal underground. The coal was then used in the many iron furnaces in the vicinity, usually the one at Hope, where weapons and artillery for the Union Army were made during the Civil War.
The ghost of the Moonville Tunnel is one of those legends that's based on historical fact but has been distorted by telling and retelling over the years. The major story is that someone - an engineer, conductor, or signalman - was crushed under the wheels of the train that used to pass through Moonville. One version of the story has it that he was a brakeman stationed on the train who drank a little too freely, others say he was a conductor murdered by a vengeful engineer who asked him to inspect underneath the train and then ran him over, decapitating him.
One of the most popular versions has it that the ghost is actually a local doctor, who was trying to get the train to stop because Moonville was in the midst of a plague and was running short on much-needed medical supplies. The actual newspaper article from the McArthur Democrat on March 31, 1859 tells a much more mundane story: "A brakeman on the Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad fell from the cars near Cincinnati Furnace, on last Tuesday March 29, 1859 and was fatally injured, when the wheels passing over and grinding to a shapeless mass the greater part of one of his legs. He was taken on the train to Hamden and Doctors Wolf and Rannells sent for to perform amputation, but the prostration of the vital energies was too great to attempt it. The man is probably dead ere this. The accident resulted from a too free use of liquor."
A report that appeared in the Chillicothe Gazette on February 17, 1895: "The ghost of Moonville, after an absence of one year, has returned and is again at its old pranks, haunting B&O S-W freight trains and their crews. It appeared Monday night in front of fast freight No. 99 west bound, just eat of the cut which is one half mile the other side of Moonville at the point where Engineer Lawhead lost his life and Engineer Walters was injured. The ghost, attired in a pure white robe, carried a lantern. It had a flowing white beard, its eyes glistened like balls of fire and surrounding it was a halo of twinkling stars. When the train stopped, the ghost stepped off the track and disappeared into the rocks nearby."
More deaths resulted from those trying to cross the 50 foot high railroad trestle bridge which crossed Raccoon creek just before the tunnel entrance, and those unlucky souls who were suddenly caught halfway across by an oncoming train, were left with the grisly choice of either being run over by the onrushing train, or leaping to their death in the rocky boulder-strewn stream below.
Even as recently as 1993 an Athens Messenger report told the story of David, an OU student who went to Moonville to swim in Raccoon Creek. On their way back through the tunnel they saw a light halfway down it, and two of the party headed for the light to investigate, then came running back out of the tunnel screaming, "There's no one carrying the light!" David went to check it out for himself. "He wasn't kidding," he reported. "It was just a swinging light with no one holding it. I hightailed it back to the car. I haven't been out there since."
Another ghost of Moonville is reputed to be a girl who was killed when she was caught on the trestle by a train while going to visit a lover. Since at least four people were killed at Moonville crossing, it is possible that she is one of these, although the only story that seems to fit this description is that of Mrs. Patrick Shea, who lost a leg to the train while crossing the trestle and later died during an amputation. Mrs. Shea, however, was in her eighties and a grandmother. Other recorded deaths in Moonville include Raymond Burritt, an 18-year-old killed in a mine explosion; and Charles Ferguson, who was killed in a bizarre way while crossing the tracks: the train he was waiting on to pass snapped in two and he stepped out in front of the second half without looking in its direction.
The Moonville tracks and trestle before the line was torn up, sometime during the 1970s.
Moonville lingered on into the early 1900s, but by the 1920s the town was dead. The last living resident carried on until, and with his passing Moonville fell into obscurity. Today the only remains of the once prosperous community are a few overgrown stone foundations or hearths of buildings, the town’s small cemetery, and, of course, the Moonville tunnel. The last train to use the line passed through on August 31st, 1985 and thereafter the line’s new owners – the B&O Railroad – had the tracks torn up and the trestle crossing over Raccoon Creek removed. The last vestiges of Moonville disappeared – but the tunnel remains. Numerous lights are seen to float and wander above the now vanished tracks, and ghostly figures of an elderly woman are also sometimes seen in the Moonville area. (For more details on Moonville’s background, demise, and the legends surrounding the area, read my feature article on Moonville in the June 2004 issue of Fate Magazine.)
My wife and I visited the site on July 14th, 2002. After a short search of the immediate area we found the empty track bed where you could follow the depressions where the track once lay, right along to the 530 foot high embankment overlooking Raccoon Creek. After crossing the shallow stream (which is usually only a foot or so deep but can swell to triple that after heavy rains or flooding) you scamper up the other side of the creek and disappear into the woods for about a hundred yards or so. The tunnel comes into view before you know it, with the last few brick letters above the entrance the only identification remaining. The tunnel is roughly 255 feet in length. It was pretty clean except for a few old soda cans left by previous visitors and some vandals having spray-painted over a brass plaque marking when the tunnel was completely re-bricked in the 1920s.
Nothing of a supernatural nature occurred during my short visit, but I’m including the tunnel on this site just for the sheer creepiness of the place and its ghostly background. One thing you do notice when standing in the middle of the tunnel is how alone you are out in the middle of nowhere. Rather than act as an echo chamber, I noticed it was one of the quietest places I’ve ever experienced, almost as if sound cannot penetrate deep into the tunnel. No echoes of my footsteps, the rushing waters of the creek beyond, the rustle of leaves in the wind, or the sound of insects or birds - all the natural sounds that surround you once you step outside - could be heard, and this only added to the sense of being someplace eerie. I plan on returning someday for a more thorough investigation of not only the tunnel but the remains of the town itself. For railroad buffs, if you walk out through the opposite end of the tunnel and follow the path for about 2-3 miles, it is said you come across another, smaller tunnel still standing – the last remaining tunnel constructed of wooden beams (and not masonry or brickwork) in the United States, but that’s for a future visit.
Raccoon creek, which you have to cross to be able to reach the tunnel.
The tunnel emerges from the woods.
The forbidding inside of the tunnel.
The opposite, or northern, end of the tunnel.
The Moonville tunnel surrounding area from an overhead Landsat satellite image, showing the tunnel, creek, trestle area, and location of the remains of the town (click to enlarge).
The view from inside the tunnel (left), and the decaying name over the northern end of the tunnel.
Leaving Moonville tunnel, one last look back.
The Moonville cemetery. Many strange lights and mists have also been observed here.
Some of the former inhabitants of Moonville.
