Historic Western and Atlantic Railroad Tunnel

The Western and Atlantic Railroad tunnel at Tunnel Hill was completed in 1850 through Chetoogeta Mountain, a 1,447-foot bore that was the first major railroad tunnel built south of the Mason-Dixon Line. It figures in the Great Locomotive Chase of 1862, when Union raider James J. Andrews and his men raced through it in the stolen General with Confederate pursuers behind, and the opening shots of Sherman's 1864 Atlanta Campaign were fought at Tunnel Hill. Locals have long known the area as haunted, and visitors describe ghostly forms inside the tunnel, phantom campfires and lanterns that vanish on approach, glimpses of Confederate and Union soldiers who disappear, and screams from the surrounding woods where fighting once raged. A local legend adds a circus worker said to have been killed on a train passing through. The tunnel is a public historic site with a museum run through the Tunnel Hill Heritage Center, and the ghost stories are passed down in the community.