If you enjoy exploring the abandoned, spooky and long-forgotten, then you need to check out Moonville Tunnel (in broad daylight, of course).
Little remains of the abandoned coal mining town of Moonville except for a few foundations, a nearby cemetery and an old railroad tunnel - a tunnel supposedly haunted by ghosts of locals who died from being struck by passing trains.
Moonville, located near southeastern Ohio’s Brown Township (in Vinton County), was founded in 1856 when the Marietta and Cincinnati railroad ran through the area’s woods. The railroad was the only route to Moonville. Throughout the years, many people have died near the tunnel and train tracks. Because the tunnel was so narrow, it was not possible for pedestrians to walk alongside the tracks in the tunnel while a train was passing through - which resulted in numerous deaths.
At its peak, the town of Moonville was home to about 100 miners and their families.
Legend has it the ghost of a man who was killed instantly by a train passing through the tunnel wanders along the track bed near the old tunnel with a lantern at night.
Piers just outside of the tunnel along Raccoon Creek also remain. The railroad once ran along a bridge over top of them - a bridge which created another accident-prone area where multiple people died over the years as well.
Today, little remains of Moonville and its abandoned surroundings. Trains passed through the area until the mid-1980s, even though the last family left the town in the mid-1940s.
For more information (and ghost stories) about the Moonville Tunnel, watch the video below:
According to Google Maps, Moonville Tunnel is located here. For even more ghost town adventures, be sure to take our Ohio Ghost Town Road Trip.
Southern Ohio was actually home to multiple railroad tunnels, though many have deteriorated or been filled in for safety reasons. If you have any photos of the Moonville Tunnel or other railroad tunnels in Ohio you've explored, please share them with us via our Facebook page!
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