35 years ago a grad school professor claimed there were small tunnels under the central part of Chicago used to deliver coal to the big buildings. I thought he was a bit daft...
Until some years ago when the Chicago Dredge & Dock company was contracted to put in new protective pilings on one of the bridge piers at the Chicago River. One of the new pilings cracked an old tunnel across the river. The tunnel slowly began to flood, then quickly filled with water. Most pre-1940 buildings in downtown Chicago had their basements connected to the tunnels and they fill with water. It closed most of the downtown for the better part of a week, destroyed many basement computer systems, and was an all around expensive disaster. When they pumped all the water back into the river and dried out the basements, the city put a concrete plug in the tunnel on either side of the river and the building owners sealed their connections to the tunnels. Regards, Bob S.
