Turn Hole Tunnel

The Turn Hole Tunnel is an abandoned railroad tunnel near Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Built by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, it carried part of the Lehigh and Susquehanna RR main line until 1912, and was used as part of a passing siding for several decades thereafter. It is now an attraction in Lehigh Gorge State Park.


The tunnel takes its name from the "Turn Hole" in the Lehigh River, a deep eddy where the river makes a turn at the base of a high cliff, known as Moyer's Rock. When the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad extended its line from White Haven to Mauch Chunk in 1866, it crossed the Lehigh River at the Turn Hole and tunneled 496 feet through the face of the cliff, proceeding southward through the gorge. The parallel line of the Lehigh Valley Railroad crossed the river just to the west, but swung around the point of Moyer's Rock instead of tunneling. The Lehigh and Susquehanna was leased to the Central Railroad of New Jersey in 1871.

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