You can visit Moonville-It is along the Vinton County Rail Trail which is tucked into Zaleski State Forest. It is only about a forty-minute drive from Old Man’s Cave. The main road is paved, but the last mile is a raggedy dirt and gravel and, in some places, only wide enough for one car. There are a couple areas that run along a high cliff edge along Raccoon Creek. And during the winter, at times, the icy or snow-covered road can be impassable for vehicles.
The ghost of an engineer whose train smashed into a second, oncoming train in the 1880s returns to the tunnel. This is the original ghost that has haunted the tunnel since the late 1800s.
A couple Haunted Hikes: Occasionally the roar of wheels to rail and the mournful cry of a train horn fill the air on the old Baltimore and Ohio tracks between Zaleski and Athens, Ohio. Yet, locomotives have not run the nearby rails in over thirty years. Trainmen dreaded taking the late night runs through this isolated section because the ghost of one of their own, engineer Theodore Lawhead, was killed here when his train collided with another near this tunnel on a cold November night in 1880. After, newspapers reported his ghost was seen floating down the embankment dressed in white with a lantern in hand and eyes glowing red. Perhaps you will see and hear these ghosts too during a special night hike with author Jannette Quackenbush on a night with a full moon. Find out more here-
Take a walk with Lucy and Jannette and see Moonville through the eyes of the Lucy Cam!
A video I took many years ago that was on "My Ghost Story" when few people ventured because you had to hike through Forestry to get there or cross the risky waters of Raccoon Creek. And no, no other people were around. . .
The Moonville Rail Trail is maintained by Moonville Rail Trail Association, established in April of 2001 in order to build and maintain the muscle-powered Moonville Rail Trail system.
Zaleski State Forest
Moonville Rail Trail
Moonville Tunnel
Ghosts
Folklore
...and much more
