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The Moonville Tunnel - Vinton County
Moonville, Ohio. A Microscopic town that your average Ohioan isn't even aware existed. Fortunately, I'm not your average Ohioan :-).
Moonville has been a dream of mine since about 1999, when I first started getting into this whole gravehopping thing. On July 6, 2004, Chris and I
made Moonville a prime destination on our excursion. Located about 8 miles off of SR 278, just off of Shea Road in Vinton County, this tiny town has almost
nothing left to make anyone aware that it was ever there. All that remains is a cemetery (which we were too dehydrated to find), an old railway bed, two ancient utility poles,
and most importantly, an old railway tunnel with "Moonville" embossed across the entrance. Chris and I hiked back into the woods, and found the tunnel with
no problem thanks to the fabulous directions of Beth from Graveaddiction.com. Coming back we even ran into another family that was looking for the tunnel,
and I'm hoping they found it. Actually, I'm hoping they find this page and email me so I can chat with them about their impressions of the place!
Anyhow, the legend behind Moonville is that near the end of the town's life, there was some sort of plague and the town was eventually
wiped out because the trains stopped coming to the town: they just sped through. In actuality, it's probably more along the lines of the Isolation of the town
led to the 60 or so families just eventually moving away and creating another ghost town like so many others in the country. The ghosts of the tunnel are numerous,
the most popular being a railwayman who was decapitated by a train in a drunken stupor who waves his lantern in the tunnel. The legend gives this lantern waving-gentleman
a much more romantic role, saying that he tried to stop the speeding train in the midst of the plague to bring much needed supplies and that it just ran over him.
Either way, a lantern is supposed to appear, and footsteps are supposed to be heard. In 1986, there was supposedly an accident on the then still active train tracks
that involved a little girl being killed, and her giggles are supposedly audible. Chris and I experienced nothing strange other than the weird echo from my jingly anklebracelet
and an overall feeling of depression and amazement all at once. Check out graveaddiction.com for directions to Moonville, and email me if you have any stories to share! (Tonee_1986@yahoo.com).
The following story was sent to me from a website visitor, Paul Dyer. This is his email, as it was sent to me.
I was looking over your pics and stories and the one about Moonville
stirred up lots of memories. Back in the mid-1970's, long before the
advent of the internet and endless information was available to everyone,
my brother and I used to hike the Zaleski forest area and always made a
point to visit Moonville. We were teenagers from Columbus and had the
same interests you guys have now. Moonville had a lot more of a
mysterious aura about it then because in those days it really was a
little-known spot, even though the railroad was working then. On my last visit
there a afew years ago, I was depressed at how various white trash had
spray-painted the tunnel and left their garbage all over. Anyway, we used
to wait for trains to come by and get great photos-we even have a brief
film of a train emerging from the tunnel. We would go down there at
night and poke around-and there were a LOT of trains, so you always had to
be alert so as not to get caught out on a trestle. One afternoon
after ending a backpack trip my bro and I stopped in the tunnel and he
walked back to Lake Hope to get the car. I waited in the tunnel-on a
hot day it feels great in there, but it was totally creepy in there
alone, even in the daytime-I had to walk back out of the tunnel to finish
waiting for him to return. We never saw any ghosts, but we sure tried! We
also explored all the area around the tunnel for old cellar holes, etc.
and back then you could walk the tracks for miles-a few miles further
along to the east were other ghost towns, Ingham and King's Station-the
latter was especially interesting as it it had old buildings still
remaining then.
We have LOTS of photos from Moonville and surrounding areas in those
days-if you ever want a few copies let me know (uhhhh, they aren't
digital!) I could only mail them to you. Anyway, you have a classy
website-keep up the good work. On one hand I love seeing everyone's Moonville
pics and similar sites, but on the other hand it's really depressing to
see how these places are so well-known-just 30 years ago it was a very
different story-you really felt like you were discovering things. It was
awesome!
Paul D.
**NOTE: The caption links are pop-ups!
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