Tunnels under East St. Louis?
June 25, 2011 11:19 PM Subscribe
Are there tunnels beneath East St. Louis?
This article claims that there are tunnels under the streets of East St. Louis, connecting one building to another.
Supposedly, after flooding during the early 20th century, the streets of the city were raised ten feet to their current level, creating the tunnels. (What exactly does that mean? That's not really a feasible 1900 technological feat, right? Right?)
It's not a topic that seems to show up much in Google. The source isn't necessarily the most reliable (it's St. Louis's LGBT magazine, not the most-read nor, probably, most fact-checked source), and the actual existence of the tunnels could be as much urban legend as the story that follows their mention in this article, but the claim has to come from somewhere.
Built St. Louis doesn't seem to mention these tunnels.
Anyone?
This article claims that there are tunnels under the streets of East St. Louis, connecting one building to another.
Supposedly, after flooding during the early 20th century, the streets of the city were raised ten feet to their current level, creating the tunnels. (What exactly does that mean? That's not really a feasible 1900 technological feat, right? Right?)
It's not a topic that seems to show up much in Google. The source isn't necessarily the most reliable (it's St. Louis's LGBT magazine, not the most-read nor, probably, most fact-checked source), and the actual existence of the tunnels could be as much urban legend as the story that follows their mention in this article, but the claim has to come from somewhere.
Built St. Louis doesn't seem to mention these tunnels.
Anyone?
Portland too, but I've never heard of any street-raising.
posted by Nabubrush at 11:54 PM on June 25, 2011
posted by Nabubrush at 11:54 PM on June 25, 2011
While I don't know about East St. Louis, there are definitely tunnels beneath St. Louis proper. When the MetroLink was put in in the early 90s, they re-used the old railroad tunnels for the subway section downtown.
Speaking of Seattle's 1899 underground, they have tours!
posted by zsazsa at 11:57 PM on June 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
Speaking of Seattle's 1899 underground, they have tours!
posted by zsazsa at 11:57 PM on June 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
This would seem to substantiate the claim that some streets in East St. Louis were raised ten feet.
posted by Knappster at 12:03 AM on June 26, 2011
posted by Knappster at 12:03 AM on June 26, 2011
Totally feasible with 1900s technology. In Seattle they did it by building 1-2 story high walls where the sidewalks were, filling in the streets with dirt, and then encouraged the building owners to knock out what had been upper floor walls to put in their new street-level entrances. The old entrances and lobbies are sometimes still there underground, as zsazsa's link says. Seattle also removed a hill c 1910. I think civil engineering on that scale was pretty common in the late 1800s – early 1900s.
I found this at the same site Knappster linked:
I found this at the same site Knappster linked:
1875 - […] First high grade ordinance, pushed through the Board of Aldermen by John Bowman, calls for streets to be raised 12-20 feet above existing grade and the Flood of '44 water mark. Prominent high graders are industrialists and land speculators. John Lovingston, Melbern Stephens and Thomas Winstanley are in this group. Councilman Maurice Joyce and Louisiana St. John were adamant in their opposition to the plan.posted by hattifattener at 12:13 AM on June 26, 2011
(Closest I could find to more information is this urbex blog post.)
posted by hattifattener at 12:50 AM on June 26, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by hattifattener at 12:50 AM on June 26, 2011 [1 favorite]
Chicago has an extensive tunnel system in various states of disrepair. I think they're filling these in with concrete as they run across them.
It wouldn't surprise me if East St. Louis has tunnels under the streets. Any sufficiently old city (century or more) is going to be at a much higher elevation than where the land originally started. It's just what happens after a century of building: people find it easier to burry the old stuff and build new on top rather than dig it up and start fresh.
Example: around the turn of the century Chicago was suffering from traffic congestion in the central part of downtown. Solution? Build a double decker roadway over the existing one a put the shops on top. What you get is upper and lower Wacker Drive/Michigan Ave/Lake Shore Drive.
Example: land is at a premium on the island of Manhattan. Solution: create more land!
Big engineering projects like this have been going on for a long time. Chicago is actually built on a swamp, but that didn't stop them. They just built up the street until it was dry. When they say "raised the street" there wasn't any actual mechanical lifting going on. They just boarded up the store fronts that existed, filled with dirt or other crap, and laid a new road on top. La voila!
Another example from Chicago: the city gets its drinking water from Lake Michigan. But around the turn of the century the sewage flow from the Chicago River emptying into Lake Michigan was causing a public sanitation nightmare. So what did they do? Simple: they reversed the flow of the river! If they can reverse the flow of a river in 1900 then adding 10 feet to the street level of East St. Louis is no problem.
posted by sbutler at 2:00 AM on June 26, 2011 [1 favorite]
It wouldn't surprise me if East St. Louis has tunnels under the streets. Any sufficiently old city (century or more) is going to be at a much higher elevation than where the land originally started. It's just what happens after a century of building: people find it easier to burry the old stuff and build new on top rather than dig it up and start fresh.
Example: around the turn of the century Chicago was suffering from traffic congestion in the central part of downtown. Solution? Build a double decker roadway over the existing one a put the shops on top. What you get is upper and lower Wacker Drive/Michigan Ave/Lake Shore Drive.
Example: land is at a premium on the island of Manhattan. Solution: create more land!
Big engineering projects like this have been going on for a long time. Chicago is actually built on a swamp, but that didn't stop them. They just built up the street until it was dry. When they say "raised the street" there wasn't any actual mechanical lifting going on. They just boarded up the store fronts that existed, filled with dirt or other crap, and laid a new road on top. La voila!
Another example from Chicago: the city gets its drinking water from Lake Michigan. But around the turn of the century the sewage flow from the Chicago River emptying into Lake Michigan was causing a public sanitation nightmare. So what did they do? Simple: they reversed the flow of the river! If they can reverse the flow of a river in 1900 then adding 10 feet to the street level of East St. Louis is no problem.
posted by sbutler at 2:00 AM on June 26, 2011 [1 favorite]
Given the age of St.Louis, there's probably a good chance that there are, in fact, tunnels connecting buildings downtown. Way back in the day, it was very common for buildings to get their heating from centralized steam systems that served entire parts of cities. It was also fairly common for their to be centralized distribution centers with underground connections to various buildings to move freight and goods around.
So...yeah. Probably.
~Recalls fondly the umpteen hours spent exploring the steam tunnels that traversed the entire campus of his alma mater. Mmmmm...civil defense survival bisquits...
posted by Thorzdad at 4:57 AM on June 26, 2011 [1 favorite]
So...yeah. Probably.
~Recalls fondly the umpteen hours spent exploring the steam tunnels that traversed the entire campus of his alma mater. Mmmmm...civil defense survival bisquits...
posted by Thorzdad at 4:57 AM on June 26, 2011 [1 favorite]
It used to be called Illinoistown, try using that in a search?
posted by Green Eyed Monster at 6:28 AM on June 26, 2011
posted by Green Eyed Monster at 6:28 AM on June 26, 2011
I don't know about St. Louis, but early 20th century cities commonly had such tunnels in their downtowns. Labor was cheap and streets were dirty and dangerous. Business that could be conducted underground was quicker, safer, cleaner and offered wonderful opportunities for "underground" economies to thrive. Such was certainly the case here in Los Angeles, where a few stray tunnels still survive (and my husband is attempting to crowd-source a map of them).
posted by Scram at 9:38 AM on June 26, 2011
posted by Scram at 9:38 AM on June 26, 2011
Raising street level was a pre-1900 technological feat. My favorite take on the issue.
posted by mrfuga0 at 3:00 PM on June 26, 2011
posted by mrfuga0 at 3:00 PM on June 26, 2011
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