Page 44 - the NOISE December 2013

This is a report on the first complete exploration of the vast tunnel network under the city of Flagstaff, Arizona. Few if any residents know it is possible to walk underground all the way from the university’s South Campus to downtown Flagstaff. There are an additional 21 miles of
passages that branch off from the main tunnel, leading to a myriad of basements, sub-base- ments, and mysterious caverns and chambers. I found no buried treasure, but I did uncover clues to the secret history of Flagstaff that should revolutionize our understanding of the his- tory of this peaceful mountain town.
If I had known what would occur during my journey through the tunnels I can assure you I would never have attempted it. My soul has been scarred, and I may never recover from this misadventure. I hope my story will satisfy the curiosity of those who wonder what is down there, and serve as a warning to anyone else who is tempted to undertake the same doomed quest.
Late on a freezing cold night last January I stood on the sidewalk near the Facilities Services Building at the southern end of the Northern Arizona University campus. I lifted a heavy metal grate with a crowbar and pointed my flashlight downward. I heard a humming sound and saw steam pipes and electrical conduits and a passage that looked large enough for one person to squeeze through. I lowered myself into the hole and replaced the cold metal grate. I began walking north, not knowing what lay ahead.
The day before my trip began had seen typical Flagstaff winter weather, with heavy snow overnight followed by bright morning sunlight, resulting in roads easily drivable by noon. Al- though the midnight cold was piercing, I was well prepared for my trek into the underworld.
On the chosen night I was wearing a hard hat with a head lamp, a warm shirt and jacket, jeans, work gloves and leather hiking boots. My daypack contained an extra flashlight, a water bottle, a turkey sub, a lighter, and a first aid kit. I wore a utility belt holding a crowbar, a knife, a compass, two maps, a pen, and a spare flashlight. Where I was going I expected there to be total darkness. I knew there would be occasional escape hatches I could probably use to exit the tunnels, but I had no way of knowing how long I might be down there. My mission was to explore and map the tunnels. I would leave them as undisturbed as possible and take no sou- venirs; this is the unwritten ethical code of the urban spelunker.
I did feel some trepidation about entering the underground. When I first heard about the tunnel system under Flagstaff I did some research, but little information was available. An ar- ticle in the Daily Sun described the tunnels underneath the historic downtown area, but did not mention the tunnels on the university campus. An article in the Lumberjack (the campus paper) made the tunnels under the campus sound interesting, but warned that students entering them would be considered trespassing.
NAU administrators admitted seven miles of tunnels run below the campus connecting the buildings and feeding into basements. The official story is the tunnels are strictly for facilities maintenance, and the NAU police warn of severe penalties for trespassers. All this made me wonder what they were trying to hide. Were they in cahoots with the rich and powerful over- lords of the city of Flagstaff to keep common citizens from learning the truth?
The articles I read warned of the dangers in the tunnels, including superheated steam from leaky pipes, un-insulated electrical wires, and asbestos particles in the air. I now know these are not the only dangers in the tunnels. I got bitten on the hand by a zombie raccoon and banged my head several times. During my trek I encountered bats, rats, cats, mutant insects, misty ap- paritions, and a feeling of psychic nausea so profound I almost abandoned my mission.
The more I read about the tunnels, the more I got the feeling the real story was being cov- ered up. I gathered a few clues from a book on Flagstaff’s history and some obscure web sites
44 • DECEMBER 2013 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us
where “urban infiltrators” posted notes on their limited excursions underground. I knew the original tunnels on Aspen Avenue downtown connected the basements beneath ten buildings between San Francisco Street and Leroux Street, from the Monte Vista Hotel to the Weather- ford Hotel. Other tunnels branched off going several blocks north and west.
The earliest tunnels were built by Chinese residents who stayed in Flagstaff after they con- structed the railroad that runs through the middle of town. The big fire in 1886 burned sev- eral downtown buildings and the local yokels blamed the immigrants for the fire. The Chinese folks feared violent retaliation and dug the tunnels so they could avoid confrontations and get around town in secret. Most of these tunnels were just narrow passages, but over time some were enlarged into rooms used for storage. It was rumored the Chinese operated private opi- um dens and other illicit businesses in secret chambers hidden below the downtown streets.
In 1920 the Flagstaff Electric Light Company built a power plant where the Blome build- ing now stands on the NAU campus, and they built tunnels to the downtown area to house steam pipelines. The tunnel was made large enough to allow access for maintenance. Then in 1921 the Babbitt brothers created a company to provide electric power and steam heat to downtown, and the new tunnels were connected to the older ones. During the Prohibition era criminal gangs discovered the downtown tunnels and stored large quantities of liquor in the underground rooms and also operated secret gambling halls and brothels out of the sight of the upstanding citizens who strolled the sidewalks above.
Eventually these rooms were enlarged and improved until they were fairly comfortable, though it must have been claustrophobic without any windows. Well into the 1950s members of powerful organized gangs (the “Mountain Mafia”) used the extensive network of tunnels to store guns, ammunition, and stolen merchandise, or sometimes just to hide from Johnny Law. Our local mafia don was Anthony Bonanno (he was nicknamed “The Lumberjack” because he used an ax to discipline informers). He held regular conclaves of Flagstaff’s “three families” whose descendants still control our thriving meth, prostitution, white slavery, and gambling businesses today.
From my research I learned the basements and tunnels underneath several downtown es- tablishments are still in use, including those beneath Painted Desert Trading, Armadilla Wax Works, Babbitt’s Sports Center, and Confederated Community Church. Mountain Sports has an underground pool hall and bowling alley dating back to 1902. The store’s employees have reported hearing faint, ghostly sounds of wild partying down there late some Saturday nights.
Before entering the tunnel system I considered the pros and cons. The main pro was it would be an adventure; I had the opportunity to be the first person to walk all the way from one end of the network to the other and document it by publishing the story. The transect would put my name in the local history books and possibly even attract a girlfriend. On the negative side of the equation, I could be arrested and jailed for trespassing. However, the main negative consideration was I could easily be injured and die a prolonged and painful death while lying in filth and surrounded by fetid darkness blacker than the inside of a coffin. My exquisite corpse would decay and no one would ever know what happened to me. I thought about it for a few minutes and decided to go ahead.
On the night I entered the tunnel I waited till late enough that the campus cops would prob- ably be searching only for hot coffee, not a rogue student on a mission. I pried up the heavy metal grate with my crowbar, dropped into the tunnel, carefully replaced the grate, and began walking north. The air was thick and warm and humid, and the corridor smelled moldy. The only real difficulty was avoiding touching the hot pipes that fed the heating systems for the campus buildings. Sure enough, the pipes had a flaky white coating that could easily be asbes-
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