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    The Collapse of Richmond's Church Hill Tunnel
    The Collapse of Richmond's Church Hill Tunnel
    The Collapse of Richmond's Church Hill Tunnel
    Ebook158 pages2 hours

    The Collapse of Richmond's Church Hill Tunnel

    By Walter S. Griggs Jr.

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, was in shambles after the Civil War. The bulk of Reconstruction became dependent on the railways, and one of the most important links in the system was the Church Hill Tunnel. The tunnel was eventually rendered obsolete by an alternative path over a viaduct, and it was closed for regular operation in 1902. However, the city still used it infrequently to transport supplies, and it was maintained with regular safety inspections. The city decided to reopen the tunnel in 1925 due to overcrowding on the viaduct, but the tunnel needed to be strengthened and enlarged. On October 2, 1925, 190 ft of the tunnel unexpectedly caved in, trapping construction workers and an entire locomotive inside. In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the tunnel and the mystery surrounding its collapse. There were cave-ins and sink holes above the surface for decades after the tunnel was sealed up, and in 1998, a reporter from the Richmond Times-Dispatch did an investigation, trying to determine the current condition of the tunnel. In 2006, the Virginia Historical Society announced its efforts to try and excavate the locomotive and remaining bodies.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe History Press
    Release dateOct 18, 2011
    ISBN9781614234876
    The Collapse of Richmond's Church Hill Tunnel
    Author

    Walter S. Griggs Jr.

    Dr. Walter Griggs Jr. is a law professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. He holds an MA and a JD from the University of Richmond and a PhD from William and Mary. He has written numerous articles and books on a variety of historical subjects and was awarded the Jefferson Davis Medal for his work. Griggs is married to the former Frances Pitchford, a retired English teacher and librarian. She edits and proofs his work. Griggs and his family live in Richmond, Virginia.

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    Reviews for The Collapse of Richmond's Church Hill Tunnel

    4.5/5

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    • 3/5
      As a Richmond native I was quite familiar with the old C&O tunnel under Church Hill. My Dad had taken me to the entrance (western one) several times and recounted the story. He had worked briefly with several folks who had worked on the rescue/recovery efforts.Intrigued by hearing his recounting of the story of the day in October 1925 when the tunnel collapsed on the work train and crew inside, I wanted to know more. But there was no BOOK on the topic - a glaring hole in both Richmond's history (the collapse was arguably the worst natural disaster to strike the city since the Theater fire of 1811) and local railroad history.When I learned that a book had finally come out on the topic I poured over it eagerly. The Collapse of Richmond's Church Hill Tunnel, by VCU Professor Walter S. Griggs, Jr., (History Press, 2011) looks at an important episode of Richmond's post-Civil War history. However it didn't fulfill my expectations, for several reasons. First, there is NO MAP. I am a map guy - a book can never have too many maps. There is but one map in this book, on page 100 no less, and it is a VERY shoddily-reproduced one that shows not the location of the tunnel in relation to the rest of the city but instead the location of the rescue shafts dropped into the tunnel after the collapse. A reader not familiar with Richmond's geography would be absolutely lost as to where the tunnel is located and why it was even needed, due to the local topography. This is a glaring omission that should never have been allowed to happen.Second, it is poorly written and edited (something that seems to plague many of these History Press works, in addition to poor graphic quality). There is much repetition by the author, and too much first-person usage by him in the text as well. Despite being very well researched, Griggs gets bogged down in inane details in spots while glossing over other important details that are left unexplored. Despite interviewing witnesses and participants over a period of 50 years, the apparent depth of this research does not come through in the text.But Griggs' work is not without merit. As noted above, it is quite well researched. After the collapse occurs, Griggs devotes a chapter to each successive day of the rescue efforts - a much more understandable and readable approach than combining all into one or two chapters (although some of the resulting "chapters" are literally one or two paragraphs). And needless to say the book fills a void in Richmond history. Griggs even tackles the popular story of the "tunnel vampire" - most authors, if they even mentioned such at all, would likely have only in passing mentioned the birth of that legend arising from the tunnel disaster.At 120 pages, Collapse is a quick read (I read it in a single afternoon). But sans maps it can't really be deemed a "field guide" (although most folks know NOT to venture around that area, especially the east portal). The length is typical, though, of similar works by the History Press.This is one of those books that crosses subject lines and would appeal to several audiences: Richmond history folks, railroad buffs - C&O folks in particular, and those with an interest in engineering history as well (although details on the actual structure of the tunnel itself are sparse, despite the author's harping on the unstable composition of Church Hill).While Griggs has at least given interested audiences a book to turn to for more information, the definitive work on the subject of the Church Hill Tunnel remains to be written.
    • 5/5
      tunneling needs courage and writer is very good to narrate
    • 4/5
      Deep within Church Hill in Richmond, Virginia, underneath a city park, C&O Railroad steam locomotive #231 and two workers are entombed -- victims of the collapse of the Church Hill Tunnel in October of 1925. This slender volume is the fruit of a 50-year fascination by the author, who learned about the disaster from his grandfather and who did his college graduation thesis on the subject many years ago.It's a subject about which I knew nothing until I visited the C&O Heritage Center in Clifton Forge during a trip to Virginia last Thanksgiving weekend. I was sufficiently intrigued by what I learned that I purchased this little book published by the History Press. It's a quick read -- 120 pages plus a bibliography. It tells a little about the history of Virginia railroading in general and the C & O (Chesapeake & Ohio) Railroad in particular. It talks about the construction of the tunnel, its relatively brief time of usage, and the disaster which finished it off. It gives a day-by-day account of the rescue/recovery efforts. We also learn a bit about the state of race relations in Virginia both at the time of construction and the time of the disaster. And it provides many interesting photos.The book included much discussion of the railroad routes relating to why the tunnel was needed, how it served during its lifetime, why it was largely abandoned for a number of years, and why the railroad was trying to re-open the tunnel when it finally collapsed for good. I have to agree with another reviewer that maps would have been most helpful in understanding what the author was talking about. Without giving the reader a view of the specific geography, all that talk was pretty meaningless. The book contains one tiny and virtually unreadable diagram on page 100, but nothing else to help the reader understand the many geographical references.In all, the book was reasonably informative regarding what happened and why. I think I would have liked a little more info about the construction techniques discussed, since they relate so directly to the disaster. This is another area where some basic diagramming would help the reader understand what happened. I wish the author had shown me a diagram of block arching, and compared it with a diagram of another construction technique that might have been more appropriate.I did like how each chapter began with an epigraph -- some of those little readings from various literary sources were very interesting, and I may look up some of the sources to read them in their entirety!

    Book preview

    The Collapse of Richmond's Church Hill Tunnel - Walter S. Griggs Jr.

    true.

    Introduction

    Millions of years ago, Richmond, Virginia, was covered with water. Even today, remains of prehistoric sea life can be found in the earth under the Church Hill section of Richmond. The waters receded long ago, but they were destined to play a major role in the history of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway and the City of Richmond.

    The area we call Richmond was once occupied by Native Americans who saw the settlers from Jamestown sail up the James River and place a cross at the future site of the city. In the course of time, Richmond was settled and became not only the capital of Virginia but also the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

    When the Confederate soldiers abandoned Richmond in April 1865, officers on worn-out horses and long, gray lines of infantrymen on foot trudged from the burning capital city to a little-known place called Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Many factors resulted in the defeat of the Confederacy, including lack of food, lack of soldiers, the overpowering strength of the Union army and the broken and twisted railroad tracks over which the soldiers stumbled as they headed west. These broken rails reflected the fires from hundreds of burning buildings, as the last of the Confederate soldiers left Richmond and became silhouetted against a blazing April sky.

    Richmond, after the fall of the Confederate nation, became well acquainted with the rigors and humiliations of military reconstruction. The once proud city was now patrolled by soldiers in blue uniforms, and Virginia now suffered the indignity of being called Military District no. 1. Yet because of, or in spite of, the terrible times of Reconstruction, the city began to rebuild itself. New buildings rose upon the charred foundations of burned-out structures. Flowers reappeared in trampled gardens, and the chirping of birds was no longer drowned out by the thunderous sounds of distant cannon fire. And there were also the sounds of railroad spikes being pounded into crossties, as broken tracks were repaired or replaced. Soon locomotives began to pull trains on tracks radiating out from Richmond, as Richmond emerged from a city of despair to a city with a vision of recovery.

    On February 1, 1872, an important link in this rebuilding process occurred when ground was broken for a railroad tunnel under Richmond’s Church Hill. Beginning near Shockoe Creek in the vicinity of Nineteenth Street, the tunnel was dug under Jefferson Park, crossed under Broad Street, passed near St. John’s Church where Patrick Henry proclaimed, Give me liberty, or give me death and came out below Chimborazo Park, which only a few years earlier had been the site of the largest military hospital in America. From portal to portal, the tunnel stretched almost four thousand feet under historic Church Hill. The construction of the tunnel was a source of pride to Richmonders; but during its construction, it had numerous cave-ins that cost a number of workers their lives.

    After it was completed, the tunnel enabled train traffic to go from the docks on the James River to the C&O railroad yards at Seventeenth Street. But Richmond’s future as a port city was short-lived. When tracks were laid to the deep water ports in Tidewater, Virginia, along with the construction of a new viaduct in Richmond, the tunnel soon fell into disuse, and for a number of years, it was rarely used. But as rail traffic increased on the C&O, the decision was made to restore the tunnel and return it to use. This decision would prove to be a mistake.

    On October 2, 1925, Chesapeake and Ohio locomotive no. 231 entered the tunnel, pulling flatcars to aid in the reopening of the tunnel. The train had almost reached the western portal near Eighteenth Street when bricks fell from the tunnel’s ceiling, the earth caved in and several railroad workers were trapped and died. Following the cave-in, there were heroic efforts to save the trapped men, but the efforts failed, and at least two men remain buried in the tunnel along with the locomotive that, in the words of a song, Will Never Return. In 1926, the Church Hill Tunnel was sealed off and became a tomb for both the men and the locomotive.

    Inscription on the west portal, indicating the time that it was sealed. Photograph by Walter Griggs.

    Today, people can stand at the western portal of the tunnel and recall its history as both a tunnel and a tomb. In addition, urban legends have developed around the tunnel. Its mystery will continue as long as there are those who have a passion to study the past and the lurking ghosts and vampires of the present.

    Chapter 1

    The Genealogy of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad

    Trains cross the continent in a swirl of dust and thunder; the leaves fly down the tracks behind them; the great trains cleave through gulch and gully, they rumble with spiked thunder on the bridges over the brown wash of mighty rivers, they toil through hills, they skirt the rough brown stubble of shorn fields, they whip past the empty stations in the little towns and their great stride pounds its even pulse across America.

    —Thomas Wolfe, Of Time and the River

    Virginians are passionate about tracing their family history back to at least Jamestown, Virginia, if not to Adam and Eve. The Library of Virginia, the Virginia Historical Society and other repositories of archival material are filled with people hunched over old papers, wills, books covered with red rot and family Bibles, trying to trace their families back as far as possible and to prove that they are related in some way to a distinguished person who fought with George Washington or Robert E. Lee or signed some important document like the Declaration of Independence. It seems that the study of genealogy is a passion for many Virginians, in general, and Richmonders, in particular.

    Like families, railroads have family trees that frequently explain their origins, mergers, development, accomplishments, failures and ongoing challenges. For example, the Union Pacific can claim to be a part of the first transcontinental railroad that crossed the United States, and the Southern Pacific has as one of its ancestors the Central Pacific, which was also a part of the first transcontinental railroad. The Baltimore and Ohio can claim to be one of the first railroads to be built in the United States, and the Alaska Railroad is known for having to chase moose off of its tracks with a device called a moose-gooser.

    The C&O is no exception, but it has a family lineage that can be termed truly aristocratic and includes up to 150 railroads that were added to its family tree over the years. Its genealogical history would make anyone proud—even a Virginian.

    The history of the C&O has two distinguished branches. The oldest branch can be traced back to the James River and Kanawha Canal Company that began in the 1780s and was supported by George Washington. The canal was planned as a means of providing transportation to the west by connecting the James River in eastern Virginia to the Kanawha River in western Virginia, now West Virginia. The Kanawha River was the objective since it flows into the Ohio River and opens the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the cities on the eastern seaboard.

    When the canal was opened from Richmond to Lynchburg in 1840, there was a big celebration. The orator at the opening dedication in Lynchburg rose to such heights during his speech that he fell into the canal. As the canal inched westward, picturesque packet boats filled with passengers, accompanied by bateaus loaded with tobacco, were pulled by mules or horses walking on the tow path next to the canal. For the true romantic, the canalboats reminded them of the gondolas of Venice, Italy.

    Although the James River and Kanawha Canal Company was designed to reach the Kanawha River in western Virginia, it only reached the town of Buchanan in Botetourt County, Virginia, which is about 150 miles west of Richmond. It was never completed to the Kanawha River.

    The genealogical linkage between George Washington and the Chesapeake and Ohio exists because the Richmond and Alleghany Railroad Company laid railroad tracks along the towpath of the old canal. Eventually, the Richmond and Alleghany Railroad Company reached from Richmond to Clifton Forge, Virginia. It could be said that the iron horses replaced the mules and horses as the pulling power along the towpath. In 1889, the Richmond and Allegany Railroad was acquired by the Chesapeake and Ohio, thus establishing a genealogical link with George Washington. This connection was worthy of an FFV (First Families of Virginia). Indeed, the C&O had been referred to as George Washington’s Railroad; in the years ahead, the railroad would name a passenger train in honor of the first president of the United States.

    The second link in the corporate family ancestry of the Chesapeake and Ohio was a railroad and not a canal. Railroads replaced the canals as a more versatile means of transportation, and they were better able to meet the needs of Virginians. As a practical matter, railroads were cheaper than canals and usually took less time to reach a desired destination.

    The Louisa Railroad Company was destined to become the railroad ancestor of the C&O. This railroad was chartered by the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1836 and began to operate in 1837. Like most southern railroads built prior to the Civil War, the Louisa Railroad was probably built by slave labor. When the railroad was completed, there was a celebration. A locomotive and three cars departed Richmond on the tracks of the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad and then switched to the new Louisa Railroad tracks. Decorated with flags, the train was pulled by a locomotive that burned cordwood and bellowed smoke from its massive smokestack. On board were distinguished guests, including Virginia’s lieutenant governor, William F. McFarland, who was the chief speaker of the day. Although there was a big celebration, the railroad was only twenty-one miles long, but it was the start of what would become the Chesapeake and Ohio

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