Posted on 10/08/2010 3:55:38 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Eric Blind sat up to his ankles in mud. With a brush, he scraped away at a structure of 157-year-old brick, taking in a sight he knew would soon disappear. Behind him, sat the entrance to an old tunnel, carved into the bedrock of San Francisco's Presidio in the years when mad gold speculation fueled a population explosion in the City. Just a week ago, this tunnel, with its brick-lined entrance, sat buried beneath 43-feet of earth -- forgotten for a century by just about everyone except for Blind... The rumored tunnel wasn't the kind to conjure images of gold seekers or adventurers. It was a water tunnel, dug by early entrepreneurs hoping to strike it rich by selling San Francisco water from the Presidio's Mountain Lake... The tunnel would carry water underground from the lake, through the Presidio and Pacific Heights, and up to a tank on the top of Telegraph Hill... Workers only dug three-quarters of a mile through bedrock before giving up the following year. No one's exactly sure why the project went bust. The tunnel, and its shame were eventually covered up. Blind stood in the mud near the mouth of the tunnel, snapping pictures and taking a last look. Old wood beams lined the entrance, below a wall of old brick. The entrance was filled in with years of sediment. The next day, just a week after its discovery, excavation crews re-buried the tunnel. Blind hopes to unearth it again in the spring, and eventually preserve it as a monument to a different sort of San Francisco history.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcbayarea.com ...
|
· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe · |
|||
Antiquity Journal & archive Archaeologica Archaeology Archaeology Channel BAR Bronze Age Forum Discover Dogpile Eurekalert LiveScience Mirabilis.ca Nat Geographic PhysOrg Science Daily Science News Texas AM Yahoo Excerpt, or Link only? |
|
||
|
· Science topic · science keyword · Books/Literature topic · pages keyword · |
|||
Presidio Tunnel, Golden Gate
"It failed gloriously"
Implies that someone attempted the impossible...and next time someone might succeed.
Hm. I love archeology, but this project might have been better postponed until California has the money to spend on digging holes to refill them.
THE S.F. MUSEUM OF PHAIL
Depending on how old you are, you may recall that late 1960s special, “They Said It Couldn’t Be Done”. I wonder if that’s on YouTube now? It was pretty entertaining as I recall; after seeing it on TV as a kid, I got to see it again in a 7th grade class, probably (easily?) the best media presentation I remember from the school years. Here’s one of the projects from that long-ago show:
http://www.crazyhorsememorial.org/monument/
http://www.google.com/images?q=crazy+horse+monument
Another segment was about the Bering Strait bridge proposal. And beyond that, I’m drawing a blank. :’l
I’ve walked through that, didn’t know it was related to this old project.
I’ve been there :)
I have a hard time getting a picture of that. How does one do that?
Maybe that is a more polite way of saying, “Eric Blind had mud in his butt-crack.”
I suppose the author meant squatted rather than sat but didn’t like the image of that.
Tim Conway was Eric’s childhood hero.
Thanks! That’s it!
Speaking of Gods Graves and Glyphs...
That show was produced by ‘Bell Systems’.
When I tell teens or young adults that I used to work for ‘the only telephone company’ they’re as dumbfounded as if I’d said I used to work for Hercules.
I figured someone helped him with those stables.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
