Tunnelton is a

Census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, such ...

in Guthrie Township, Lawrence County,

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

History

Tunnelton was

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bear ...

ted in 1859. Before Tunnelton was platted, the Tunnelton United Methodist Church was platted in 1816 by Thomas Milligan, the first minister in Lawrence County who also served all of Southern Indiana. The church itself, however, was built in 1891. The first schoolhouse was built in 1881, a large two story frame building. In 1910 a brick school was built, housing grade school and high school. In 1929 it was remodeled and later modernized. The Tunnelton High School had 250 to 300 in attendance. In 1957 a large, new gymnasium was completed. Now the school is abandoned. Its name commemorates local

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

s which had recently been completed on the railroad. The Tunnelton post office opened in 1860 and the first Postmaster from 1860 to 1881 was Alfred Guthrie who also owned the town's General Store and was an agent of the B&O railroad. The second Postmaster was M.D., "Doc" Guthrie who served from 1881 to 1885 he was the town's physician. On February 10, 1882, an ambush (dubbed the Tunnelton Massacre) occurred. Sometime during the 1880s the town had a tavern alongside the railroad. An old small brick building in town which now is privately owned, was used during the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. T ...

The Big Tunnel

The town's namesake comes from The Big Tunnel, a 1,731 ft. long tunnel that was completed on April 15, 1857, just two years before Tunnelton was laid out, or platted. The tunnel was constructed for the

Ohio and Mississippi Railway The Ohio and Mississippi Railway (earlier the Ohio and Mississippi Rail Road), abbreviated O&M, was a railroad operating between Cincinnati, Ohio, and East St. Louis, Illinois, from 1857 to 1893. The railroad started in 1854 and paralleled the ...

, but is now controlled by

CSX Transportation 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. ...

. At other points in time, it was controlled by the

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond t ...

, as well as the

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

. In 1898, the tunnel was shortened and brick lined. Then, the following year, in 1899, a 1700 ft companion tunnel, dubbed as The Little Tunnel, was turned into a cut. The tunnel is also known by the locals as "The Tunnelton Tunnel". It is known as "Ritner Tunnel", mainly to CSX transportation.

References

Unincorporated communities in Lawrence County, Indiana Unincorporated communities in Indiana 1859 establishments in Indiana {{LawrenceCountyIN-geo-stub