This tunnel was uncovered in December. I wonder if there is a link?
Crews uncover pedestrian tunnel in downtown Reno
Elaine Goodman
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
12/26/2003 10:06 pm
As long as 100 years before work started on Reno’s $282 million train trench, officials were worried about pedestrian safety near railroad tracks downtown.
In response to those concerns, a $6,000 pedestrian tunnel was opened in 1902 beneath the tracks at Virginia Street.
But pedestrians didn’t like using the tunnel, where vagrants congregated, muggings were frequent and leaks were common.
“It was an early attempt to improve people’s lives,” said Edward Stoner of Western Cultural Resource Management, an archeological consultant on the city’s train trench project. “From the public’s perspective, it was never very well accepted.”
The tunnel returned to the public eye last week when crews working on a bypass track for the trench project dug up a stairway leading down to it.
Nine steps down to a landing were uncovered at the southwest corner of Virginia Street and the tracks. Based on historical records, Stoner that believes another 12 stairs descend from the landing to the tunnel entrance 10 to 12 feet underground. Those stairs have not been uncovered.
The find is among the latest archeological discovery during work on Reno’s train trench project.
The trench, which city officials have called the biggest public works project in Reno’s history, will place trains below street level for 2.1 miles through downtown, eliminating 11 railroad crossings. With the number of trains through Reno expected to increase, officials say the trench will reduce delays for motorists and emergency vehicles.
The documentation of cultural artifacts uncovered during the project is required as part of federal funding for the trench project, Stoner said.
The pedestrian tunnel, which once was called the Reno Subway, is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. But the city is allowed to destroy the tunnel for its trench project, as long as the finding is documented through photos and a narrative history, said Rebecca Palmer with the state’s Historic Preservation Office.
Other artifacts that have been uncovered include cisterns once used for firefighting, a conductor’s watch that could be 100 years old and a railroad spike modified to serve as a coat hook.
In March, crews working near Ralston Street to move telephone lines for the trench project found part of the English Mill Ditch, the oldest man-made channel in Reno. It was built in 1865 to bring water from the Truckee River to the Old English Mill near Wedekind Road.
Earlier this year, crews found a different part of the pedestrian tunnel, but the thick concrete walls and sand limited access to the tunnel’s interior.
The tunnel, about 8 feet high and 8 to 10 feet wide, passed under the tracks, coming out on the north end, near the front of the Eldorado Hotel-Casino.
Kiosks were built to mark the entrances to the tunnel. The kiosk at the southern entrance was rebuilt in 1913 to make way for the extension of Virginia Street, north of the tracks and redesigned in a mission style.
Stoner said tiles uncovered at the tunnel entrance likely are from the kiosk’s roof.
The tunnel, which the city and Southern Pacific Railroad paid for, was closed to pedestrians in 1927, according to a news story at the time in the Nevada State Journal. After that, the tunnel was used for commercial purposes, including tire storage, Stoner said.
The last surface remnants of the kiosks were demolished in 1957.
http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2003/12/26/60148.phpWhen I came here, there was talk in Kingman of an old Chinese tunnel, under the train tracks and going from the old hotels at 3rd and Andy Devine, to the south.
I know the counters at the El Mohave were not as tall as normal.