![]() ![]() Portions of old buildings and one of the train yards were still intact up until around the 1970s, but all have since disappeared. From the railroad path on Hope – Moonville Rd, the town was in the opposite direction of the pedestrian bridge, about 500 yards from the tunnel and past the next creek crossing. ![]() ![]() The postal dates of 1857 – 1902 factor in the office that served the residents moving around a lot and the name changing several times, including Moonville (1857 – 1858), Big Sand Furnace (1858 – 1863), back to Moonville (1863 – 1865), Hope Furnace (1865 – 1890), and Rue (1887 – 1902). There wasn’t many residents by the 1920s and the last family left in 1947. Moonville was doing well up through the 1880s, but a bad smallpox epidemic in the 1890s lead to a major population decrease and all the mines shut down over the next couple of decades. David is buried in Keeton Cemetery in Lake Hope State Park off of SR 278. Baldy was found dead on the railroad tracks the next day and reportedly throws pebbles at people from the top of the front tunnel entrance to let them know he’s there. ![]() He got into a bar brawl one night at the tavern that was on top of the right side of the tunnel hill. One of them was a brakeman that got crushed between train cars and a few people that got hit while walking home. David “Baldy” Keeton (1821 – 1886), who was always described as being a local bully, is said to haunt the front of Moonville Tunnel. There were also a deaths inside the tunnel. With no roads going through the rough terrain and densely forested area, the railroad tracks were the only way in and out of town.There are several confirmed deaths of people getting hit by trains, jumping off of the trestle as one approached, and jumping off the trains at certain points like where their houses were if they weren’t scheduled to stop at the station. There was also a school run by Addie and Martie Coe, a tavern, hotel, and several residences that were scattered around the woods. The official population was never much more than 100 residents, even during it’s boom days, but many of the miners and railroad workers commuted from surrounding towns and travelers would sometimes stay for a night if the train they were on stopped at the station. Unfortunately we were unable to locate any genealogy records on him. Moon who operated a general store nearby. The town is always said to have been named after a Mr. Samuel Coe (1813 – 1883) donated land for a train station on the Marietta – Cincinnati Railroad (later bought by the B&O) in 1856, so he could move coal and clay off his property more easily to sell it. They hope to build more bridges along the rail trail and reconnect the nearby ghost towns of Ingham and Kings Station further east on the same railroad line. A new wood pedestrian bridge crossing Raccoon Creek, where the train trestle had been torn out, was constructed in 2016 with funds acquired from the state and raised by the Moonville Rail Trail Association. The tunnel sits on the old railroad track bed heading East from Hope Moonville Rd. Some visitors make a yearly pilgrimage to the site and are awed every time by standing in front of and walking through the nearly completely intact abandoned railroad tunnel that once had speeding trains rolling through it. Moonville, OH – (1856 – 1947 coal mining and railroad town abandoned when mines shut down) Classification: ghost town Location: Brown Township, Vinton County – In Zaleski State Forest along the old railroad path that crosses Hope – Moonville Rd GPS Coordinates: 39.308443, -82.324566 Moonville has been the most talked about and most popular ghost town in the state for a while now. ![]()
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