MOONVILLE--

Deep in the hills of Vinton County there once was a town called Moonville.  It was born in 1856 when the country was sprawling its way toward the frontier.

The railroad tunnel above was part of that expansion by the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad which itself was grinding its way westward through these Appalachian Mountain foothills in southeastern Ohio.

Coal also was found in the area then and the railroad would be a terrific means of moving that fuel to the marketplace.  Hence Moonville was born in these forested hills where the Civil War was several years away and hostile Indians were in the death throes of maintaining their land against the overwhelming force of this expansion of white people.

The railroad was built and the town made up of railroad workers and miners reached its biggest population of about 100 in the 1870s.  But soon, progress passed the little hamlet by.  By 1887 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bought out the M & C line while the coal mines already were becoming exhausted

By the turn of the century the mines were closing down.  The last family left town in 1947 and the town was abandoned.  By 1960 all the buildings were gone and the only things left to mark the town's site were the tunnel and the cemetery which my lady Sue is reconciling with the tunnel's location in the small photo above.

Lookout Rock (below) is a nearby, geologic feature.  Local legend has it about 20 men were passing this area one night in Ohio's early history when they were attacked by a large pack of wolves.  The men took refuge on this rock structure, built a fire and spent the night--safely.

Other local legends tell of ghost sightings, often of people who met gruesome deaths, usually by encounters with moving trains on dark and stormy nights.

Vinton County to this day is the least populated and most heavily forested county in Ohio.  Note the road Sue is standing on above is gravel and one lane.  Not far down this road we passed a place where the road was barely wider than the car and the drop on either side was nearly straight down and unprotected by any form of guard rail.

Can you see the face of a local ghost in the rock above; the broad high forehead and the hooked nose flanked by a disfigured eye on the near side with the other eye hiding under a sharp brow and above a bony cheek with a small mouth and drooping chin below--supported by hunched shoulders and a sunken chest?

All that and the possibility of a slumbering ghost being in the neighborhood added up to our being very happy that we made this visit in the partly sunny daylight.