I’d love to report a sense of ghostly tingles and spookiness, but I’ve always been nonchalant at the notion of ghosts. We crossed one bridge, then got to the tunnel, which we walked through. Once we found signage for the Moonville Rail Trail and the Moonville Tunnel, we got out and started walking. No butterflies were harmed in the researching of this novel.) At one point, the route was so remote that butterflies were settled on the road in front of us. We went on a nice spring day, taking a major state route east out of our town, then once in southeast Ohio, turning off onto a smaller state route. So, of course, my husband and I set out to visit Moonville Tunnel. Well, how could I not be inspired by such a history, right in the Appalachian area of Ohio where my series is set? Particularly when Lily Ross, my protagonist inspired by the real-life Maude Collins, would have heard of the tales? Then there was a brakeman, and a lady… All told, there were six reported deaths on the bridges along the track or in the Moonville Tunnel. An engineer and fireman died in a wreck on the track in 1880, and not long after, stories began to abound of a ghostly engineer walking the track with his lantern. Of course, deaths on such a treacherous stretch of track are inevitable, and perhaps so too are the ghost stories that would follow. The track, though desolate and unsignaled until 1981, was used until 1985. People lived in Moonville through the 1940s. It was a treacherous pass for trains, one that engineers dreaded, yet people would walk the track as a quick way to get to the village. The Moonville Tunnel was blasted through a large hill to accommodate trains. Learn More: The Battle for Blair Mountain ![]() But the town was never accessible by other than foot, horse or mule, or a drawn wagon. At its peak, it had about a hundred residents, and in addition to the depot, a schoolhouse, saloon, and cemetery. Moonville served as a railroad depot for rail companies hauling coal and other goods through the region, and it served coal miners who worked in a small operation, as well as a few families tucked in the hills of the area. The county is still the least populated in Ohio, and the most forested. Moonville, it turns out, was a tiny village established in the 1880s in rugged and nearly impenetrable terrain in Vinton County, Ohio. So, of course, I started looking up information on the Moonville Tunnel. “It’s in southeastern Ohio-near where your novels are set!” ![]() “Hey, have you heard of the Moonville Tunnel?” he asked. My husband happened to be reading an article online about quirky Ohio locations. Not long after I completed the final draft of The Widows-the debut title of my Kinship Mystery Series, inspired by Ohio’s true first female sheriff in 1925-my husband and I were enjoying a Friday night like the introverts we are: reading.
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