My sister had directions from a website called Hidden Hocking but I had the coordinates from a geocaching website. Seeing as I'm from Ohio and am therefore a bad driver, I chose to plug the coordinates into my GPS so I could focus on driving and not reading street signs. When I did that, getting to the tunnel was pretty easy. I took 33 West from Nelsonville to 56 South and then took a sharp turn onto 356. If you use a GPS it will yell "recalculating!" as you turn onto 356 but just ignore it. While on 356 the GPS suddenly announced that we were at our location. At the time, our location was somewhere deep in the Southeastern Ohio woods so my sister and I were a bit confused by this. The GPS was correct, we were at our location, on top of it actually. 356 is on the side of a hollow and if you look down you'll see what appears to be an ATV trail. That's the trail you take to get to the tunnel. Keep going down the road and you'll see Rock Creek Road to your left. There's some parking space around the intersection and when you turn back to face 356 there's an old concrete bridge that is the start of the trail.
My little sister threatened to hack into this blog and post unflattering pictures of me if I put her picture up so I boxed her out. I was standing on the concrete bridge when I took this.
The trail to the tunnel isn't long at all, less than ten minutes.
Welcome to King's Tunnel, also known as King's Hollow Tunnel or the Mineral Tunnel. This tunnel and the Moonville tunnel both belonged to the Marietta-Cincinnati railroad and are thought to have been built around the same time. No one seems to know why this tunnel was built with timbers instead of concrete or rock (maybe because it's already in a giant rock?).
A better view of the boulder/hill/rock the tunnel where the tunnel is set. The tunnel was much longer than I thought, it's roughly 355 feet long.
Each of these timbers were huge and while I didn't measure I'd estimate they were at least 12x12.
I'm pretty sure it says 1955 but I could be wrong.
Refreshingly there was little graffiti. If you look up above the nose of the dog, you can see where the boards are starting to warp and buckle.
The beams at the top of the tunnel.
A few of the seams were starting to split.
It's always nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The tunnel was originally built in the mid-1850s but with only a timber skeleton. The walls were added at some later point. The tunnel was taken out of service in the 1980s and CSX took the rails out. There are rumors of joining the Moonville and King's Tunnels with a bike/riding path which would be a great attraction for the area. As always, if you plan on going let someone know because there is no cell phone reception at the tunnel and it may be days before someone finds you.
King's Tunnel is located in Lake Hope State Park, lovely but little known. The Moonville tunnel isn't too far, add a picnic and a spot of hiking and you have a nice way of spending a late fall day in Ohio.
Interesting specimen. There are many timber-lined railroad tunnels, but I've not seen many that also have timber portals, at least not as lovingly constructed as this one. This must have been part of B&O's St. Louis line. CSX was very foolish to sever that route.
ReplyDeleteYou and your sister must get over your shyness! We want to see you and your preppy fam! :)
If they had removed the timber from the walls, the entire tunnel would be full of rocks, gravel, and other random bits of earth. There were a few places were the walls had busted and you could see crevices roughly the size of a decdent bathroom.
ReplyDeleteMy little sister is the anti-prep. It started when she was a teenager listening to Bad Religion and has continued on into her current college days. I don't have any up because I can't remember the last time someone took my picture.