Natural Tunnel State Park is a

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

, centered on the Natural Tunnel, a massive naturally formed cave that is so large it is used as a railroad tunnel. It is located in the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

near Duffield in Scott County,

. The Natural Tunnel, which is up to wide and high, began to form more than a million years ago when groundwater bearing carbonic acid percolated through crevices and slowly dissolved

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

and dolomite bedrock. A small

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

, which is now called Stock Creek, was diverted underground and it continued to

erode Erode () is a city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Erode is the seventh largest urban agglomeration in the state, after Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruchirapalli, Tiruppur and Salem. It is also the administrative headquarters of the E ...

the tunnel over many millennia. The walls of the tunnel show evidence of

prehistoric life The history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and fossil organisms evolved, from the earliest emergence of life to present day. Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago (abbreviated as ''Ga'', for ''gigaannum'') and evide ...

. Many

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s have been found in the creek bed and in the tunnel walls.

Geology

The tunnel passes through Purchase Ridge, which is made of the

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start ...

Chepultepec Limestone and is near the axis of the Purchase Ridge

syncline In structural geology, a syncline is a fold with younger layers closer to the center of the structure, whereas an anticline is the inverse of a syncline. A synclinorium (plural synclinoriums or synclinoria) is a large syncline with superimpose ...

. It lies between the Clinchport Thrust Fault and the Hunter Valley Thrust Fault, on the Hunter Valley Thrust Sheet. The tunnel itself began its formation in the Pleistocene period.

History

A popular legend tells of a

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

maiden and a

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...

warrior who had been forbidden to marry by their respective tribes, jumped to their deaths from the highest pinnacle above the Natural Tunnel. The place is now known as

Lover's Leap Lover's Leap, or (in plural) Lovers' Leap, is a toponym given to a number of locations of varying height, usually isolated, with the risk of a fatal fall and the possibility of a deliberate jump. Legends of romantic tragedy are often associated w ...

. Although Natural Tunnel State Park was created in 1967 and opened to the public in 1971, the Natural Tunnel has been a Virginian tourist attraction for more than a century;

Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the we ...

is reputed to have been the first European to see it in the 18th century. The 41st United States Secretary of State

William Jennings Bryan William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, orator and politician. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, running ...

dubbed it the "

Eighth Wonder of the World Eighth Wonder of the World is an unofficial title sometimes given to new buildings, structures, projects, designs or even people that are deemed to be comparable to the seven Wonders of the World. Candidates for the Eighth Wonder of the World ...

". The South Atlantic and Ohio railroad constructed tracks through the Natural Tunnel in 1893,"Natural Tunnel", ''

Trains magazine ''Trains'' is a monthly magazine about trains and railroads aimed at railroad enthusiasts and railroad industry employees. The magazine primarily covers railroad happenings in the United States and Canada, but has some articles on railroading els ...

'', January 1944 and the first train passed through the following year. In 1899, the Natural Tunnel was purchased by the Tennessee & Carolina Iron and Steel Company. The railway originally carried passenger trains; today, the line is still open but now operated by

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway (U.S.), Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the ...

, also used under

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may con ...

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

, and is only used to transport

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

Park facilities

There is a

boardwalk A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway built with wooden planks that enables pedestrians to cross wet, fragile, or marshy land. They are also in effect a low type of bridge ...

that allows disabled visitors to gain access to the tunnel. Park visitors can also camp, swim, picnic and hike. There is a visitors center and naturally formed amphitheaters that are up to high.

Natural Tunnel State Park Trails

References

External links

Natural Tunnel, VA State Parks websiteRailroad (external)Railroad (interna)
{{authority control State parks of Virginia State parks of the Appalachians Parks in Scott County, Virginia Railroad tunnels in Virginia Protected areas established in 1967 1967 establishments in Virginia Caves of Virginia