Stumphouse Tunnel at Issaqueena Falls
A new railroad over the Appalachians was proposed to connect the port city of
Charleston
first with
Knoxville
and later Cincinatti. Rather than go over or around the mountains in this area it was decided to dig a tunnel. The 1600-foot-long Stumphouse Tunnel was started in 1852 but the Civil War—and a lack of funds—brought construction to a halt. While there were various efforts by the Blue Ridge Railroad to revive the tunnel, none of them came to pass and it stands today as a monument to the efforts of pre–Civil War engineering. In 1951,
Clemson
University
bought the tunnel and used it to cure the South's first blue cheese. The tunnel's environment was later duplicated at Clemson, and the cheese-making that Clemson is now famous for, was moved there. Not far from the “tunnel to nowhere” is
Isaqueena
Falls
, one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the state
