Stumphouse Tunnel, located near the community of , was designed in the early 1830s with the goal of connecting rail lines in to Knoxville, Tennessee, and eventually Cincinnati, Ohio. wanted an alternate route for the Blue Ridge Railroad because, at that time, the route bypassed the mountains of South Carolina, extending instead to northern Georgia and on to Tennessee.
It took two decades for the tunnel to begin to take shape, being built primarily by Irish immigrants in the 1850s. From 1853 to 1859, a temporary town formed around the largest section for workers and their families. Known as Tunnel Hill, it was home to roughly 1,500 inhabitants. Tunnel Hill consisted of a schoolhouse, a Catholic church, a post office, and several saloons.
