Jim Thorpe Tunnel (Turn Hole Tunnel)
Jim Thorpe Tunnel (Turn Hole Tunnel) at Lehigh Gorge State Park in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania is a roadside oddity that features an abandoned railroad tunnel.Closed
As of November 2023 (and earlier), the Turn Hole Tunnel (aka Jim Thorpe Tunnel) is officially closed-off to the public. Trespassers will be prosecuted and fined, so please stay out of the tunnel. This write-up exists to show the outside of the tunnel and to depict its current state. Unfortunately the risk of the public going inside of the tunnel are far too great due to random rockfalls or the possibility that the tunnel is unstable.
History
The Turn Hole Tunnel (aka Jim Thorpe Tunnel) was built by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company in 1866 and carried part of the Lehigh and Susquehanna RR main line until 1912. The tunnel gets its name from the "Turn Hole" in the Lehigh River, a deep eddy where the river takes a turn at the base of a steep cliff, known as Moyer's Rock. In 1866, the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad extended its line from White Haven to Muach Chunk (now Jim Thorpe) and crossed the Lehigh River at the Turn Hole, tunneling 496 feet through the cliff to reach the other side. In 1871, the Lehigh and Susquehanna was leased out to the Central Railroad of New Jersey. The Turn Hole Tunnel carried two tracks of the CNJ until 1910. After construction of a new bypass track, the Turn Hole Tunnel was used as a passing siding until the tracks were abandoned in 1956. Eventually the CNJ main line through the Lehigh Gorge was abandoned in 1965 and now most of that has become the Lehigh Gorge Trail (or D&L Trail).
