Case file · Haunting
Hoosac Tunnel and the Central Shaft disaster
On 17 October 1867 a naphtha fire collapsed the hoist of the Hoosac Tunnel's Central Shaft in western Massachusetts, trapping 13 men 538 feet down. The tunnel has been called haunted ever since.
1867 CE · 42.68, -73.04 · status: legend
The account
Construction from 1851 to 1875 killed or badly injured some 195 workers, 135 of them verified deaths. Months after the fire, workers found that some of the trapped men had survived long enough to build a raft. Railroad men and visitors have long told of voices and figures in the 'Bloody Pit'.
The sceptical view
The deaths are documented; the ghost stories are oral tradition with nothing to test.