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The
Moonville Tunnel
Deep in the backwoods of Vinton County stands
the Moonville Tunnel, a relic from an era long gone. The town it is named for
was born when the Marietta and Cincinnati railroad was built through the coal-
and iron-rich woods of southeastern Ohio in 1856. At its peak in the 1870s, the
town boasted a population of more than 100--almost exclusively miners and their
families. There was a row of houses along the railroad tracks, a sawmill just
down Raccoon Creek, a 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 coal underground. The coal was then used in
the many iron furnaces in the vicinity, usually the one at Hope, where weapons
and artillery for the Union Army were made during the Civil War.
The
Moonville Tunnel
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