Brooksville Tunnel

Photo from 1907 postcard in C & O Historical Society collection

The Remains of Brooksville Tunnel Today

The bricks that remain from the 1850 Brooksville Tunnel are located directly under the I-64 bridge that crosses the CSX railroad tracks.

Albemarle County Plat Map, 1950

This plat shows the Brooksville Tunnel drawn at the top of Mountain Hollow Orchard.  The owners in 1950 were Richard and Mabel Alwood, descendents of William Bradford Alwood, who owned the orchard at the turn of the century.

                                      Western Portal of the Brooksville Tunnel

A second tunnel was constructed in approximately 1927 at Brooksville.  Both the original tunnel and the 1927 tunnel were demolished in the early 1970s during the construction of I-64.  The tunnels were replaced by a cut used today.

Photo courtesy of C & O Historical Society

                                                 Virginia Department of Transportation Drawing

VDOT drawings in 1956 show an abandoned tunnel and an existing tunnel.  The yellow lines show the present location of I-64.

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Location:   117 miles W. of Richmond                                                                                                          

Dates of Construction:  1851-1856                                                                                                                                       

Length: 869 ft.                                                                                                                                                

Grade: 70 feet per mile                                                                                                                                     

Width in clear: 16 ft.                                                                                                                                 

Height:  19 ft. 5 inches                                                                                                                               

Length of Arching:  869 ft.

Single Track: yes                                                                                                                                                 

Materials encountered:  Primary shales and hard slates                                                               

Remarks: C. Crozet, Chief Eng., C. R. Howard and D. Shanahan, Assistant Engineers;   John Kelly, Contractor.   Two internal slides took place which opened the roof to the surface of the tunnel (150 ft.) and an immense slide also took place at the western extremity.  Tunneling was suspended for two years.

Primary Source Reference:

The continuity of the portion of the state work used by the company is unfortunately interrupted here by the unfinished Brooksville tunnel, round which the trains pass over a temporary track with strong grades and curves.  I had hoped to have completed this work long ere this; but it has turned out to be an undertaking vastly more difficult and hazardous than was the Greenwood tunnel.  It passes, for some 700 feet of its length, through a mixture of soapstone and stiff clay, the cohesion of which is soon destroyed by the contact of the air, and whose great weight overhead and lateral pressure require the strongest system of timbering, not infrequently crushed in while being raised.

Claudius Crozet letter to Board of Public Works, Dec. 9, 1855