In the southeastern Ohio town of Lake Hope sits the MOONVILLE TUNNEL. This long forgotten railroad tunnel is one of the only remaining remnants of a small mining town that thrived for a short time. The town of Moonville was born in the late 1850's when the Marietta and Cincinnati railroad was built to transport the coal and iron out of the Ohio mines. Moonville was never a big town, at its height, there were probably never many more then 100 residents, and almost all of them were exclusively miners and their families. There was a row of houses along the railroad tracks, a sawmill, schoolhouse, post office, 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 underground. The coal and iron was then used in the Hope furnace, where weapons and artillery for the Union Army were made during the Civil War. By the turn of the century the coal mines were closing and the town was dying. The last family left in 1947, by the 1960's all of the buildings were gone. The tracks have recently been removed along with the trestle that used to cross Raccoon creek.
The Moonville tunnel is about 50 yards long and is very narrow, trains would go through at full speed and have very little clearance on each side. Many accidents supposedly happened in the tunnel, so naturally, many legends have made their way into the local folklore. Some legends are based on historical facts and some have probably been exaggerated throughout the years. The most well-known story is that someone who worked for the railroad, possibly an engineer or a brakeman was crushed under the wheels of a train. It's been said that he was a conductor murdered by a vengeful engineer who asked him to inspect underneath the train and then started it up. One source even said that he was trying to get the train to stop because Moonville was in the grip of a plague and was running low on supplies. A newspaper article from the McArthur Democrat on March 31, 1859 featured this Moonville 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. The accident resulted from a too free use of liquor."
In 1895 the Chillicothe Gazette published this article: "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 east 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."
Other accounts of the Moonville ghost tell the story of seeing a swinging light in the tunnel.....but upon closer inspection, realizing that nobody was holding it. There were at least four deaths near the tunnel, including a young girl who was killed by a passing train on the nearby trestle while going to visit a lover.
The Olde Forester's History of Southeastern Ohio
Ghost of Moonville
The Moonville Ghost Tunnel
The Moonville Ghost
Legends of Athens: The Moonville Tunnel
Haunted Southeastern Ohio: The Moonville Tunnel
Ghosts of Ohio: The Moonville Tunnel
Ohio Trespassers: The Moonville Tunnel
Ohio Exploration Society: The Moonville Tunnel
Trip to Moonville
Athens News Article: "Ready For Some Different 'Haunted Athens' Stories? Read On."
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