Have you ever been to Stumphouse Tunnel? It is located about 7 miles outside of Walhalla in Oconee County SC. This incomplete railroad tunnel was bored into Crystalline Bedrock of Stumphouse Mountain during the 1850s for the then anticipated route from Charleston, SC seaport to the Tennessee Valley. The tunnel and the railroad were never completed first because funding fell short but then later because of the Civil War. Stumphouse Tunnel was meant to be 5,863 ft., but in 1859 with only 4,363 ft. completed, the state refused to send more money.
The Stumphouse Tunnel is today used as a recreational site. Because the temperature is around 50 degrees and the humidity is about 85 percent year-round, a doctor at Clemson University decided to temporarily store and age blue cheese. The environment of the tunnel was later duplicated in the Clemson Agricultural Center and the cheese making was moved there. But that is a blog for another day.
These photos were taken last summer on a trip I, my daughter, and my birth-mother took to the Tunnel. Although it was a hot summer day, it was actually cold in the tunnel! One shot is from outside looking in (see the mist?, cool huh) and the other is from the inside looking out ( the light at the end of the tunnel) HA
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