{"id":2043,"slug":"moonville-tunnel-moonville-ohio","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Moonville Tunnel is the ghost town's monument — the brick arch in the Vinton County woods with MOONVILLE still spelled over the portal. Samuel Coe gave the railroad the right-of-way in 1856; the town of a hundred miners grew around it; the last family left in 1947. The tunnel and the cemetery are what's left — the rest went back to the Zaleski State Forest.","The danger was the tracks — twenty-one killed on or near the line, the trestle fifty yards from the tunnel mouth, the last death a girl who fell in 1978. The ghosts are the railroad's — the Engineer whose train collided head-on in the 1880s, the Brakeman with the lantern, the Lavender Lady, the Bully. The lantern lights in the tunnel are the legend the rail trail sells — the town that's only a tunnel now, the deaths that made the haunts.","The file keeps Moonville Tunnel: the 1856 railroad, the 1947 abandonment, the twenty-one deaths, and the ghost lanterns.","Moonville Tunnel is the archive's haunted-tunnel file — the portal that outlasted its town."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Moonville Tunnel is the archive's haunted-tunnel file — the railroad ghost town's surviving arch.","A tunnel keeps its dead — the file's suggestion being that Moonville's hold is the count: the twenty-one deaths on the tracks, the four named ghosts, and the lantern lights in the dark."]}],"name":"Moonville Tunnel","aliases":[],"type":"RAILROAD_TUNNEL","type_label":"Railroad Tunnel","cats":["ABANDONED_PLACE","LOCAL_FOLKLORE","PHANTOM_SOUND"],"groups":["ghost-towns","legends","roads"],"desc":"Abandoned 1857 rail tunnel haunted by a lantern-swinging brakeman.","full_desc":"A railroad tunnel in Moonville, Ohio, built in 1857, Moonville Tunnel is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Abandoned 1857 rail tunnel haunted by a lantern-swinging brakeman. Its signature presence is Moonville brakeman — the figure the file’s accounts keep returning to. The dossier holds 2 reported claims, 1 legend and 1 documented fact, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Moonville","county":null,"state":"Ohio","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":39.3086,"lon":-82.3247,"coord_kind":"EXACT","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":1857,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"New record from encyclopedia/official-source pass; VERIFY task auto-queued for primary-source corroboration.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":70,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0.85,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":1264,"type":"UNEXPLAINED_LIGHTS","description":"Visitors report a swinging lantern light at the far end of the tunnel attributed to a dead brakeman. The figure answers to Moonville brakeman in the retellings. The site in Moonville, Ohio gives the account a documented setting: real place, real history, unresolved reports. The account has a collector's pedigree — written down as legend, which is the most honest status it can hold. 'Moonville Tunnel' carries the account. The glows remain the region's longest-running unexplained phenomenon.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":"Moonville brakeman","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Moonville Tunnel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonville_Tunnel","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]},{"id":1265,"type":"REPORTED_ANOMALIES","description":"Hikers report footsteps, voices and a figure in the tunnel. Moonville Tunnel's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. Witness accounts, no evidence file: the claim is anecdotal and stays that way. Nothing here would make headlines alone; together the reports make a pattern.","evidence":"ANECDOTAL","evidence_label":"Anecdotal","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Moonville Tunnel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonville_Tunnel","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Built in 1857 for the M&C Railroad; the last train passed in the 1980s and the line was abandoned. A documented history gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that spine. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. Sources including 'Moonville Tunnel' carry the record. The record keeps it — history, not lore.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1857","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Moonville Tunnel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonville_Tunnel","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Visitors report a swinging lantern light at the far end of the tunnel attributed to a dead brakeman. Moonville Tunnel in Moonville, Ohio carries the report the way old places do — as part of its identity. 'Moonville Tunnel' preserves the telling; the record keeps it filed where it belongs, as lore. The account appears in 'Moonville Tunnel'. The tale is the site's other archive — oral, embroidered, and outlasting the documents.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Moonville Tunnel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonville_Tunnel","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[{"name":"Moonville brakeman","claimed_identity":"Moonville brakeman","verified":null,"summary":"Visitors report a swinging lantern light at the far end of the tunnel attributed to a dead brakeman. Moonville brakeman is what the reports name it. Moonville Tunnel's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. The report is preserved in sources like 'Moonville Tunnel'. A named spirit outlasts an anonymous one; the file's name is Moonville brakeman.","behavior":"Visitors report a swinging lantern light at the far end of the tunnel attributed to a dead brakeman.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"Moonville Tunnel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonville_Tunnel","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Site access varies; verify before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Moonville Tunnel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonville_Tunnel","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":2,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":1,"sources":1}}