Undergound St. Louis

[pavement]

So, I wish at a show the other day talking about UE andone of the people I was talking to has been under the famous barr warehouse off 40, And says that under the building there are caves with ball rooms and dinning halls and many other things. Does anyone else know about this? I hope that it is true but not sure.

[Chris]

Sorry, but I laugh every time I see that picture. I really, really doubt there's any caves accessable from the basement of the Famous Barr warehouse. That building isn't even that old.

It would be awfully cool though!

[pavement]

If I see here agian I will ask for more info, but It would be neat.

[memory_machine]

That sounds so much like the legends of the Lemp Brewery. I wonder if this person just got their local lore mixed up.

[ropingk]

ball rooms and a theater and the pool--i would have loved to have seen that in its day Man it had to be awesome---Anybody ever wonder exactally what was used to light it up??? we use oil lamps a lot and they are ok but the caves are really really dark and big and well cave like

[pavement]

yeah, she also may have ment the famous bar building downtown that has old train tunnels under it. But she said she had been in them, I am not sure how much she may have been bull shitting or just confused about location.

As for the railroad tunnels under downtown, does the tucker tunnel go all the way under downtown, and what about the other tunnel I hear of on cass or carr? I would like to explore these some time.

[Chris]

The tunnel under Tucker goes for several blocks, but it's not really a tunnel, we just call it that. It's more of an overpass that's closed on one side. If you know where the old Globe-Democrat building is, that's where it ends.

Here's a map of it. The red line is the tunnel and the green line is open areas.



If you want to go, you can drive right into it.

I'd bet that the Cass/Carr tunnel is the same tunnel.

[ropingk]

Chris isnt there a train tunner that leads from the museum of transoporation to some place down town????? I knwo for sure there is a tunnel at the museum and it does have trains in it and it goes a LONG LONG way back

[Chris]

No, the museum is in extreme west Kirkwood, about 15 miles from downtown. Before the museum was the museum, it was just a very minor station known as Barrett Station (hence the name of the road).

There are/were three tunnels near the museum property. One is actually on the property and is at the west end of the display yard. It's gated, but only on the museum end. It's a few hundred feet long. The second one was just east of the Museum, but it was filled decades ago. It too is a few hundred feet long. All that's left are the cuts leading two and from and some cut stone blocks along the old right of way. This, along with the one on museum property, were the first tunnels west of the Mississippi River. They were put out of use in the 1940s when the Missouri Pacific (now Union Pacific) double-tracked their St. Louis - Kansas City line. This included a realignment which shifted the line at this spot to the south by about 60 or 70 feet and allowed them to blast open topped cuts through the hills as opposed to boring a tunnel.

Also, to the south of the museum, there was a resort area popular around the turn of the century known as "Meramec Highlands". It's just west of 270 off of Big Bend. Meramec Highlands station still stands, but it's now part of a subdivision and has been extensively modified. There's a yellow house up the street on the corner that once housed the stationmaster and a small post office. To the west is Meramec Highlands tunnel, which which was in great original shape until recently when the evil city of Kirkwood filled it due to Kirkwood yuppies making it's entrance their backyard. There's now a brick wall at the entrace that covers the bottom 2/3 of the portal and the top area is covered with bars. Except for the top two or three feet, the tunnel is filled. If I had to guess, I would guesstimate it at about 300-400 feet long.

There are still two tunnels on the Union Pacific line around Allenton, but cosidering 60 mile per hour freights run on this line along with Amtrak at irregular intervals quite often, I would not consider actually exploring them. They're several hundred feet long and have very long, very deep cuts on each end. I don't know that there would be any room to move out of the way if two trains were to pass there.

You can see them if you ride Amtrak to Kansas City and back though!

[ropingk]

thanks Chris i knewe there was at least one that went a ways back it is gated but the gate isnt much any wya thanks for the info

[Willard]

What about the old tunnel that ran under 8th street downtown? Is it still in use? I know at one time it connected to the Eades Bridge and I believe the other end came out at Union Station somehow.

[Chris]

You're thinking of the TRRA tunnels. Metrolink uses them now. You can see them from the train, but the interior lights are very bright making it hard to see anything out the windows other than the reflection of what's inside the cars.

[pavement]

are there any more tunnels under down town like the metrolink tunnel?

[Willard]

are there any more tunnels under down town like the metrolink tunnel?

There may be... seeing as St. Louis is a very old city but they'd be old sewer tunnels... I'll let the St. Louis guys take over from here.

[Chris]

I know there's nothing else down there like the Metrolink tunnels.

But...

I think their might be a network of steam tunnels downtown. I do know for a fact that the TriGen steam plant north of the riverfront supplies steam to many downtown buildings, but I don't know if the pipes are just buried or if they're in tunnels. There are A LOT of manholes downtown marked "steam" though.

I'm sure there are some pretty good storm sewer tunnels. We're just beginning to scratch the surface though.

I know there are some tunnels under the train shed at Union Station.

There's bound to be utility tunnels under the many colleges, industrial sites, hospitals, and businesses in the area.