Ohio: Coal Towns, a Haunted Tunnel, and a Village the Government Emptied

Introduction

Ohio is the closest of the six out-of-state chapters — the southeastern corner is about six hours from southern Michigan — and it is the one where the destinations are most tightly packed. Almost everything worth going for sits in the Hocking Valley coal country of Vinton, Perry and Athens counties, inside or beside Zaleski State Forest and the Wayne National Forest.

⭐ THE FINDING THAT ORGANISES OHIO: the state’s ghost towns were killed by coal running out, and its most famous abandoned place was killed by the government buying it. Those are two different stories and they sit ninety minutes apart.

6.1 Moonville Tunnel — Zaleski State Forest, Vinton County

Access: walk in. The single best destination in Ohio for this project: free, on state forest land, a real ruin, a real ghost story, and legal camping close by.

What it is: a railroad tunnel — one of the last physical traces of the ghost town of Moonville. Mineral, Moonville and Hope were all iron and mining towns of the 19th century, strung along the Moonville rail line, which ran through two long tunnels on its way to the iron furnace at Hope. The towns went; the tunnels stayed.

Getting there: from US-33 near Nelsonville, south on OH-278 toward Lake Hope State Park. Past Lake Hope, left onto Wheelabout Road and stay straight. The road turns to gravel and crosses a one-lane bridge. Park near the old rail bed, cross Raccoon Creek, pick up the trail — the tunnel is about 100 yards on.

The longer walk: from the Moonville lot it is 3.6 miles one way through King Tunnel and on to Mineral — which strings three ghost towns onto one hike and is the better way to spend the day.

⭐ The ghost story is unusually specific, which is what makes it good. Not a vague presence: a brakeman or engineer killed in an 1880 crash, who walks the line carrying a lantern, and a second figure, the “Lavender Lady,” struck by a train. A lantern on a rail bed is a story that explains itself — the tunnel is on an abandoned line in a state forest with no other light for miles.

Camping: Zaleski State Forest backpack trail sites; Lake Hope State Park is adjacent for developed camping. In the Wayne National Forest, Wildcat Hollow is popular dispersed camping.

6.2 San Toy — Bearfield Township, Perry County

Access: look, don’t enter — foundations in the woods.

A company coal town built by the Sunday Creek Coal Company in the early 1900s. At its peak it had hundreds of homes, a hospital, a company store, a school, a theatre, churches and recreation halls.

🔴 San Toy holds a genuinely remarkable statistic: in the 1930 census it was the town in the entire United States whose population had fallen the most per capita since the previous census — from 976 in 1920 to 128 in 1930. An 87 percent collapse in ten years.

⭐ And then the town voted itself out of existence. In 1931, 17 of the 19 registered voters voted to abandon it. Not a slow drift, not a fire, not a flood — a ballot. It is the only town on any of these lists that formally resolved to stop being a town.

6.3 Shawnee — Perry County

Access: roadside. Founded 1873 and once the largest town in Perry County, filled by the Hocking Valley coal boom with miners, saloons and ornate brick buildings. Today the sources describe foundations and crumbling roads deep in the county’s woods, with the surviving brick main street the draw. ⚠ Access details unconfirmed — treat as a drive-through until checked.

6.4 Boston Mills — Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Summit County

Access: open (national park), buildings not enterable.

The place everyone means when they say “Helltown.”

What actually happened: residents were ordered out by the federal government in the early 1970s when the land was bought to create what is now Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Houses stood empty, some were boarded and marked, and a park grew up around them.

🔴 What people say happened: that the valley was evacuated for toxins in the soil, or for Satanic activity. ⭐ The truth is duller and much more interesting — this is a town that was emptied by eminent domain for a park, and the folklore grew specifically because nobody explained the boarded-up houses to the people driving past them. Helltown is a legend about a paperwork process.

⚠ This is a national park in a metropolitan area, not a backcountry destination. No dispersed camping, no solitude, and the “haunted” road tour is somebody’s neighbourhood. Worth a stop when passing Cleveland or Akron; not worth a trip.

6.5 Where to sleep in Ohio

Wayne National Forest — dispersed camping permitted across much of its roughly 240,000 acres, away from developed recreation areas, established campgrounds and day-use areas.

Table 1 — Where to sleep in Ohio

Rule	Ohio (Wayne NF)
Distance from water	at least 200 ft
Stay limit	14 days in any consecutive 30
Site choice	use existing sites and fire rings; pick ground with no vegetation

🔴 The Ohio-specific trap: private land is interspersed throughout the Wayne. It is not one block of forest — it is a patchwork, and the boundary is often unmarked on the ground. Confirm you are on National Forest System land before you set up, which in practice means carrying the forest ownership layer offline rather than trusting a green patch on a road atlas.

⚠ Note how different this already is from Michigan. Michigan says park within 50 feet of the traveled road. Ohio’s national forest says camp at least 200 feet from water and says nothing about hugging the road. The rules are not merely different in detail — they point in opposite directions. See vol 12.