Vinton County Volunteers Maintain Moonville Rail Trail, Protect Historic Tunnel

Local volunteers have stepped in to repair trestles above Hewett Fork and shore up access to the brick-lined Moonville Tunnel, work that preserves a Civil War–era rail corridor while confronting intermittent closures on the route. The Vinton County Rail Trail Association has placed wooden trestles above Hewett Fork, and Wikipedia notes that work to restore many removed railroad bridges is “underway,” even as recent trail-user reports show gaps elsewhere.

The corridor follows the former Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad grade that later became part of the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Division and ultimately was discarded during late-1980s CSX abandonments. The best-known structure is Moonville Tunnel, a masonry, brick-lined tunnel built in 1856 and long the focus of local ghost lore. A second, rarer timber-lined structure, variously called King Switch Tunnel, King’s Hollow Tunnel or Kings Station Tunnel, was built about 1855 and is described by Visit Vinton County as a roughly 120-foot bore lined with 12×12 wooden beams.

Basic trail statistics differ among official and visitor sources. Wikipedia and Visit Vinton County list the corridor as a 10-mile (16 km) rail-trail with trailheads at Zaleski and Mineral and a parking lot at Moonville, while TheHockingHills and the Moonvilletunnel site describe a 16-mile “work-in-progress” corridor and cite longer one-way segments (3.6 miles one-way to Mineral in one account, 2.7 miles one-way to King Tunnel in another). The official table entries list the trail surface as gravel and dirt, permit hiking, horseback riding and cycling, and record a highest elevation of 731 feet, lowest 691 feet and a net elevation change recorded as a 7-foot loss; difficulty is listed as “Hard” and season as year-round.

Public safety and maintenance remain uneven along the route. A TrailLink reviewer warned bluntly about the approach: “I would strongly advise not to start down this gravel road. It is one lane and as once you start you cannot change. Look for an alternate route. There are sheer drops of over couple hundred feet on the right. You will literally crawl down this road (5 mph) and if someone was coming up there is no room to go around.” The same reviewer noted the western section was closed because “a few bridges (#4 and #5) are out,” while crossing Raccoon Creek at bridge #6 and then bridges 7 and 8 over Hewett Fork at MM6 remain passable. That reviewer added a broader critique: “We went out to Moonville expecting this to be as high quality as the Athens Rail Trails but were sorely surprised to see nothing has been done. It looked the same as when we visited 15 years ago...actually, much worse.”

Volunteer stewardship groups frame maintenance as an economic and cultural preservation project. The Moonville Rail Trail Association (MRTA) is described by Visit Vinton County as a local 501(c)(3) established in April 2001 with a mission to “maintain, promote, and expand a muscle-powered trail system,” preserve historic railroad infrastructure, educate the public about regional history, and “promote economic development.” MRTA is listed with a contact address: P.O. Box 513, McArthur, OH 45651. Wikipedia and MRTA materials also record an ambition to extend the corridor east to New Marshfield and Athens to join the Hockhocking Adena Bikeway.

The trail’s mix of rebuilt trestles, remaining bridge gaps, ghost-tour interest centered on Moonville Tunnel, and wetland habitat along Raccoon Creek and Hewett Fork makes the corridor both an asset and a logistical challenge for Vinton County. Continued volunteer work on trestles and bridge restoration is central to keeping the tunnel and its adjacent ghost-town sites, Moonville, Ingham Station and Kings Station, accessible and to realizing the MRTA goal of a longer regional connection to Athens.