Below the sewers and subways of Chicago, are over 60-miles of forgotten 19th and 20th century train tunnels. This mysterious labyrinth, once connecting the majority of the city’s most prominent buildings. Has sat in abandonment and disarray for the better part of a century today, we will uncover the forgotten story of the Chicago Tunnels.. I’m your host Ryan Socash and your watching - IT’S HISTORY. Around the turn of the century, the City of Chicago was one of the most congested urban spaces in the United States of America. Chaos, might even be the most proper word to describe it. Between the horse drawn carts, were street cars gridlocked by the pedestrians moving in every direction. And although the city attempted to alleviate these issues in 1892, with the introduction of elevated rapid transport, known locally as “the L” the foundation of the new track structure obstructed valuable curb areas otherwise useful for loading. On some streets, the train commuters indeed saved time – but cargo loading guaranteed lane blockage – reeking havok on the trolly cars making their way through out the loop. And as if that was not already enough to cause high blood pressure, factors were grossly compounded by another component known as coal. You see, Coal was a primary power source for Chicagoan’s, and demand was abundant. Looking back, It’s Almost ironic to consider that the city literally emerged from ash to become covered in ash. The delivery of coal was a massive element of the cargo logistics impeding the cities quality of life. Not only jamming up already overcrowded streets, but dirtying them with the removal of its byproduct – ash. Even the Chicago Tribune gave its warning in 1874, that the huge increase in factories, hotels, and new skyscrapers with their steam-powered elevators, was a serious problem. On journilist argued
"So dense is this volume of smoke that, unless there is a brisk, stirring breeze, the whole of it settles down in the central part of the city and leaves its dirty imprint,". From todays prespetive, this type of commentary presents strong contrast to the tourist praised city of glorious architecture that we know today. Another example comes from, author Rud-yard Kip-ling who was quoted on Feb. 8, 1891 in simply saying that “Chicago’s air is dirt”. News paper editors crusaded tirelessly against the "smoke horror." Proclaiming that "The city will shortly be blackened in appearance, new as it is, and grow unhealthier”. And although there was not a great solution for the so called “air of dirt” – containment of the ash and resulting congestion of the street could be addressed by moving it all 40 feet underground. This story’s orgins began Under the watchful eye of chief engineer George W. Jackson, As the Illinois Telephone and Telegraph company built the first 26 miles of tunnel to hold telegraph and telephone cables. In 1899, a narrow-gauge railway was laid with in the tunnels with excavation, However, the project stalled after the Company ran out of money. And this is when things became interesting. In 1905, the Illinois Tunnel Company took over construction, expanding the network to 60 miles and On July 7, 1905, an 11-car train was dispatched from the Erie freight house marking the starting a new era. Stores like Marshall Fields could now move merchandise, packages and waste to and from their locations. Although it is unclear if the railway was
a part of the company’s plans from the start, they did not inform the city that they were building a railroad until construction was fairly well along, apparently, there was fear political interference. To be clear, This railway was never intended to transport passengers, just cargo. By diverting freight from slow moving wagons on congested streets to electric trains running beneath them, it would be possible to move goods of almost every description quickly between railroad stations, boat docks, department stores and factories. The building of a “subway” for freight,
rather than for passengers, was practically unheard of. Outside of the famous mail handling London railway that would latter appear, it was unique on a global scale. In 1902 the company informed the city that they were building a railroad inside of their telephone “conduits,” and after arguous
rounds of negotiations with the City Council lasting an entire year, the company was
finally authored to operate the railway but with hefty franchise payments .
Construction crews dug tunnels under nearly every downtown street at a depth of forty feet. This depth ensured that most tunnels would run through clay, which simplified tunneling. The relatively small size of the tunnels meant that standard train cars could not be used. Instead, especially built freight cars measuring about ten feet in length and five feet in width had to be used. In 1906, the freight tunnel railway opened under the name, the Chicago Tunnel Company. Freight loads typically consisted of small packages (parcels) from department stores destined to mail order customers located outside of the downtown area, non-liquid commodities of all types destined to wholesale and large retail customers, coal for building heating, and removal of heating ash. In 1910, the company reported to the state and federal regulatory commissions, that they had nearly 60 miles of track and 22 connections with railroad freight houses and 45 commercial buildings. It was estimated that the company’s little trains had diverted the equivalent of 1.3 million vehicle trips from the streets. Prominent buildings such as the Board of Trade, City Hall, Merchandise Mart, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Chicago Tribune, the Civic Opera House, the Field Museum, and dozens of others all utilized the service. But Sadly, the dream was just smoke and tings declined fast. The telephone side of the business was discontinued in 1916 due to excessive losses. By 1924, traffic had declined slightly, even though the number of commercial buildings served had risen to 60. The following decades only brought further trouble, and the company was only marginally profitable. A relatively low number of connections to on-line buildings being a primary factor. Unfortunately, the cost of tunneling into new buildings was frequently borne by their owners and, in many cases, did not make economic sense. For many potential users, it was simply cheaper to have a wagon or later motor truck pull up to the curb. The enterprise’s original concept—to divert freight from the streets and put it underground—was novel and certainly a century or more ahead of its time. Unfortunately, the system’s physical constraints, and the changing nature of the world , made its business model impossible to sustain. During the 40’s and 50’s connecting railroads
had largely discontinued the handling of small packages and had closed or relocated their freight handling operations to outlying areas; the construction of the passenger subways now used by the Chicago Transit Authority had forever severed connections to some of the Loop department stores; motor trucks stole most of their freight business; light manufacturing was disappearing from the Loop; and finally, buildings were converting from coal to gas for heating. The end of operations came in 1959, and to help pay creditors, most of the locomotives and freight cars were sold for $65,000 in scrap. as was the electrical distribution system that had powered the trains. All that remained, were the 62 miles of track, tunnels, forgone entrances, and misc relics that would also be faded in time. Considering that one of the world’s top
minds, Elon Musk, has also recently invested great consideration on building a futuristic tunnel in Chicago, this type of undertaking really does seem is visionary. I found the ideas of the former President of the Chicago Tunnel Company, Sherman Tracy, to be equally inspired. In his own words: In their economic aspects, the tunnels are an integral part of Chicago’s great scheme of trade and transportation and they are savers of time, labor and money. In their civic value they relieve street congestion, eliminate wear on the pavements and reduce the volume of noise and dirt. They offer sanitary advantages in the movement of foods and perishables, because the tunnels are clean and the air within them is pure and of even temperature. They are an influence in lowering the much-discussed cost of distribution. The tunnels are forty feet under the surface. They are below the sewers, the mazes of pipes, wires, cables and conduits; and are below the level of any passenger subway that may be built. They are unheard as well as unseen. Unlike a tunnel through a hill or under a
stream, they emerge nowhere. They are reached only by elevators and they
end against blank walls of concrete In the process of gathering for shipment by railroad, the freight of each shipper does not go to one freight terminal or in one direction. One shipper may send goods in all directions and over many railroads. A truck laden with package freight may visit half a dozen terminals. As an engineering project, the tunnels measure up to the highest standard. The tubes are six feet wide inside and seven and one-half feet high, shaped like a horseshoe. They are bored through a stratum of blue clay and the walls are faced with concrete a foot thick. There has been no perceptible settling, and the foundations of the buildings adjacent to the tunnels have remained unaffected. Naturally the largest business of the tunnels is with the railroads. Two thousand tunnel cars filled with freight are delivered to the various railroad terminals daily, and eight hundred cars are loaded for delivery to local consignees and other railroads. In a year the tunnels deliver to railroad
freight terminals about 650,000 tons of package freight—enough to load approximately 100,000 ordinary freight cars. It would be the natural expectation that these long, dim corridors forty feet below the street levels would be damp and filled with heavy air. As a matter of fact, they are dry and cool. The ventilation is sometimes too active. Currents of air rushing for the shafts are
stirred by the trains, and from the river drifts they blow with chilling vigor. The temperature is practically constant at
fifty-five degrees. As a provision against dampness, there are sixty-three electric pumps and a complete system of pipes and eleven hundred sumps from which any accumulations of water are raised to the sewers above. There is very little seepage. The tunnel floors are dry and clean . Waterproof
and fireproof doors are provided, to isolate connections with buildings and commercial
terminals in case of fire or water from above. Scientific tests have shown that the air in
the tunnels is remarkably pure. It is drawn up from them through shafts for
the ventilating and cooling of many buildings and theaters…. The titanic style declaration about the safety
provided by waterproof doors is perhaps one of the greatest paradoxes about the reality
of the system – as its fault would be the thing that brought the Chicago tunnels back
into the spotlight, this time in the form of a national emergency. In late 1991 near the Kinzie Street Bridge,
a new set of pilings were driven into the riverbed to prevent barges from bumping into
the bridge and inadvertently punctured a tunnel roof, allowing millions of gallons of water to gush
into the network. All the old buildings that had connected to
the tunnels decades earlier were flooded, electricity shorted, and records at City Hall
were soaked. The incident ended up costing roughly $2 billion
in damage. Since then the tunnels have been sealed, and
entry is near impossible. The flood offered an imposing impression on
just how encompassing the entire tunnel complex was running under nearly every street from the
river down to sixteenth street. The tunnels even went south under the Illinois
Central yards, the tracks that run through Grant Park today! As well as north of the river The risk of flooding was well understood by
George W. Jackson, the chief engineer who built the tunnel system. In 1909, Jackson received a patent on a portable
bulkhead that could be used to seal off flooded tunnel sections. The tunnel developers were also concerned
by the flooding risk posed by firefighting efforts in buildings connected to the tunnels. Should a building catch fire, immense quantities
of water could pour into the tunnels through elevator shafts and basement connections. To deal with this risk, watertight fire doors
were fitted into all building connections. Small leaks in the tunnels under the Chicago
River had become commonplace by 1913; to deal with them, the tunnel company drilled
holes in the tunnel wall and pumped grout at high pressure into the soil outside the
tunnel in the vicinity of the leak. In 1992, a cable television employee in the
tunnel underneath the Chicago River videotaped mud and water oozing in where the bottom of
the wooden pilings had cracked the tunnel wall. The pilings had been driven only a few feet
from the side of the tunnel, and the wooden pilings were visible through the collapsed
tunnel wall where wet clay had slumped away from the wood into the tunnel. Official response to the reported leak was
slow; no emergency measures were deemed necessary, and a formal bidding process began for the
contract to repair the damage. On April 13, some six months later, the slow
oozing of wet clay opened a clear passage from the riverbed, allowing the river to pour
directly into the tunnel. In what became known as the Chicago Flood
or the great leak, the entire system was quickly flooded. The Merchandise Mart was the first victim,
declaring a water emergency at 5:57 am. City Hall began to flood by 6:02 am, the Federal
Reserve Bank at 8:29 am, finally, the Chicago and Hilton Towers at 12:08 pm. The long delay before some buildings were
flooded was the result of closure of some sections of the tunnel system in 1942 when
the passenger subways were built. Many businesses had not realized that they
were still connected to the tunnel complex, as the openings were boarded up, bricked up,
or otherwise closed off—but not made watertight. Eventually, the leak was stopped and the tunnels
were emptied within days at great cost. The accident shut down the entire downtown
area for days, causing considerable economic losses. Insurance battles lasted for years, the central
point being the definition of the accident, i.e., whether it was a "flood" or a "leak." Leaks were covered by insurance, while floods
were not. Eventually it was classified as a leak, which
is why some have called it the "Great Chicago Leak." The 1992 flood was not the first time that
a contractor's action threatened to flood Chicago by puncturing the tunnel. All the way back in 1959, an excavation punctured
the tunnel, leading to a dramatic and successful fight to prevent disaster. So you ask what Remains Today When the tunnel system was first abandoned
a few special businesses actually continue using them. In the mid 1970’s the city began leasing
out the tunnels for utility and communication lines and are rigorously maintained. None of the tunnels have been used for the
Pedway system, which does not go as far below ground level. Amazingly, The Chicago Tribune, used the tunnels
until 1981 to transport newsprint from their paper warehouse to The Tribune Tower. Pryor to 2001 they were popular with urban
exploration groups who would sometimes sneak in to have a look around. Today they are securely sealed up and attempting
to access them is highly illegal. For the sake of general comparison one man
served 16 years of a 20-year prison sentence for in part for having illegally accessed
underground city infostructure. Today the only people who can access the tunnels
are authorized construction crews or city officials who enter via Chicago city hall. This system is practical from a policing standpoint
but proves to be cumbersome when workers are tasked with transporting heavy equipment to
a faraway point with in the 60-mile maze. What’s more, in some places cave ins have
occurred and in others, random sections of the tunnel have been destroyed to makes space
for new skyscraper foundations – ending up in various dead ends Now if you are looking for traces of the tunnel
or tunnel company above ground, your search will be difficult. Your best bet would be to admire what would
have otherwise been low laying areas of lake front - built up by a vast quantity of the
blue clay dug out during the construction of the tunnels. There are some train carts still in exsistance,
Between 1906 and 1908, the tunnel company purchased a number of Baldwin engines. One of these, number 508, was discovered from
the tunnel leading to the Field Museum in 1996, When rebuilding the Outer Drive, past the
museum, workers uncovered the old Grant Park Disposal Station elevator shaft and with in
it was this famous train engine . While not functional, this engine with it’s
cars are now on display in the collection of the Illinois Railway Museum. Surprisingly, the companies most trafficked
points known as ‘Universal stations’, whiche were parcle drop off points for shippers
who have no private connections with the tunnel have also all but vanished. Starting with 746 West Jackson Boulevard,
which was also the company’s general office is now a parking lot, looking at the potholes
you almost have to wonder where the original elevator shaft might have been. The Universal station at Erie and Kingsbury
street is also long gone, but you can make out the fact that there was once a rail yard
based on the landscape. The area is still heavily exploited for logistics
in modern day. More info on Erie freight yard The Third Station located at Seneca and North
Water has also vanished And the fourth at Canal and Roosevelt Road
offers nothing in the way of a Universal station as we would have understood it in the 20th
century – but the land scape here really holds onto the essence of the time when Chicago
was the main rail artery of America Outside the glitz of downtown Chicago is a
potent feeling of urban industrial decay – and whereas monumental train bridges now dead
end into modern buildings - the legacy is fading fast. The Chicago Tunnel system, however, might
just see a future as it’s out of sight and still serves the city with some pragmatic
functions – and with anyhope its story won’t be lost. To help us capture the stories of fading times,
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