06-02-2011, 12:59 AM
"Small Army Mans Vast Underground of Dallas"(1947)
Posted By: Jim Wheat
Date: Friday, 19 November 2004, at 3:27 p.m.
In Response To: Dallas Underground Tunnels (Tait Lifto - http://www.dallastunnels.com)
.
Small Army Mans Vast
Underground of Dallas
By Ben Bradford
Dallas has a vast underground.
ItÕs a little known world, made up of tunnels,
basements, sub-basements, manhole vaults and
sewers that catacomb the city. And, itÕs manned by a
small army of men and women who make all or most of
their living beneath the earthÕs surface.
Few laymen know the enormity of the cityÕs
underground.
DallasÕ storm sewer system -- with some lines as much
as sixteen feet in diameter -- would permit a man
familiar with the system to travel beneath the surface
to nearly any point in the downtown section and to
many suburban areas.
A steam locomotive operates daily under Young and
Wood Streets, with its northern terminal directly under
the second section of the Santa Fe Building on
Jackson.
Two large tunnels pass under Main and Akard Streets
connecting the Hotel Adolphus and the Kirby and
Magnolia Buildings.
Most of the downtown streets and sidewalks are mere
shells over these underground installations.
Trackage Totals Two Miles.
DallasÕ underground railroad, operated by Santa Fe,
keeps six railroad men and around fifty dockhands
under the ground most of each day.
The locomotive dips under the earthÕs surface 300
yards south of Young Street and pushes along the main
underground line to Jackson Street. A labyrinth of
tunneled sidings boosts the lineÕs total trackage to
around two miles.
Each day, the little engine, in operation since 1924,
when the tunnel was completed, chugs in and out of
the tunnel -- unmindful of the heavy traffic above it --
with tons of merchandise for approximately a dozen
Dallas firms with underground docks.
Largest of Santa FeÕs underground customers is the
Dallas Transfer & Terminal Warehouse Company.
The engine operates with live steam, which is pumped
into its tanks at intervals of from three to four hours. It
can not produce its own steam because smoke would
make the tunnel untenable.
Cool in Summer, Says Worker.
W. B. Nail, 49, who has played nursemaid to the little
locomotive for the last five years, likes his underground
job.
ÒItÕs cool in the summer, and it never freezes in the
winter,Ó he explained.
The Dallas Power & Light Company, Southwestern Bell
Telephone Company and Western Union went
underground with their installations in the last half of
the 1920Õs in an effort to clear downtown streets of
telephone and power poles and a criss-crossed
network of power lines.
Now, there are 2,530 underground manhole vaults
beneath the cityÕs streets and sidewalks. These vaults
range from small 4x5-foot cubby-holes, to spaces as
large as a big living room.
The three companies keep a total of approximately
eighty-five workers underground each day on
maintenance work.
25 Years Spent Underground.
O. J. Jones, 55, of 1413 Peabody, went underground as
a DP&L cable splicer twenty-six years ago and has
been on below-the-surface work ever since. He likes it.
The grizzled, underground veteran puts it like this:
Ã’Some guys like the poles. But, pole work freezes a
man in winter and roasts him in the summer. ItÕs
always just about right in the vaults. Besides, I know a
few guys thatÕve fallen off poles -- but, I never heard
of anyone falling out of one of these holes.Ó
Hundreds of persons are employed in the basements
and sub-basements of the cityÕs large downtown
buildings. Basement job holders range from power
plant engineers to bank vault guards, bargain
basement clerks and pastry chefs.
The Hotel Adolphus employs 550 workers, 400 of them
in the hotelÕs mammoth five-level basement that drops
two complete stories below street level.
In the various basements are the laundry, power plant,
engineering department, bakery, butcher shop,
storerooms, ice plant, artesian well, carpenter shop,
paint shop, upholstery shop and merchandise receiving
room.
Office One of CityÕs Lowest.
W. A. Griffith, 49, took over his job as operating
engineer for the Hotel Adolphus five years ago. His
office is in the fifth sub-basement, one of the lowest in
the city.
Although Griffith has gone as long as a week at a time
without a glimpse of the sun during winterÕs short days,
he insists he had just as soon work underground as
above it.
P. A. Ingels, a native of Belgium, and pastry chef for
Hotel Adolphus since 1921, says heÕs none the worse
for the twenty-six years heÕs spent in the hotel
basement.
ÒI guess itÕs all in what you get used to,Ó he said,
adding, Òbut I do wish theyÕd hurry up with the air
conditioning they say theyÕre going to put down here.Ó
Felix Dyer, a retired Dallas policeman, who guards the
First National BankÕs underground vault, says flatly,
that underground work is better than pounding a beat
all day.
Miss Margueritte Chamberlain, who has had a
basement job at the bank for the last three years, says
she sees no difference between her job and one
upstairs.
Experts Currently at Work.
Approximately sixty expert underground workers, many
with extensive mining experience, are at work on the
two major tunneling projects currently under way in
the city.
The McKenzie Construction Company of San Antonio is
tunneling a 4,200-foot underground storm sewer in
connection with the Central Boulevard project and the
P. C. Sorenson Company of Dallas is at work on three
large sewer tunnels, totaling around 1,000 feet on the
east bank interceptor sewer project.
At present, the Sorenson company is midway through
with its tunnel under West Commerce between the
Triple Underpass and Industrial.
Underground laborers on the tunneling project receive
$1.25 an hour -- 45¢ more than above-ground common
labor.
Veteran Miner Likes Work.
G. S. Cross, the Sorenson companyÕs tunneling
superintendent and veteran coal miner, has survived
three mine cave-ins, but still likes his underground
work.
Thirty-five feet under the center of West Commerce last
week, he picked up a handful of damp earth from the
bank of earth his men were tunneling through, and
said:
ÒI reckon itÕs the challenge that I like about the
underground work. ItÕs always you and your men
against the tricky earth youÕre punching through.Ó
Walter C. Brown, his burly swing-shift foreman, nodded
agreement, then hopped nimbly out of the path of the
donkey cart of dirt, a winch and cable was hauling to
the tunnelÕs entrance.
- July 27, 1947, The Dallas Morning News, Sec. IV, p. 1.
[The article includes two photographs, one bearing the
caption:
Ã’Tunnel workers push a section of the east bank
interceptor sewer thirty-five feet beneath West
Commerce, between Industrial and Triple Underpass.
Left to right: Cap Larsen, co-contractor on the project;
J. A. Smith, laborer; K. R. Baker, city engineer; Walter C.
Brown, swing-shift foreman; G. S. Cross, tunnel
superintendent on the project, and Lynn Barner,
laborer."
the other photo, bears the caption:
"W. R. Nail, assistant Santa Fe roundhouse foreman, is
nursemaid to this odd-shaped underground locomotive
which chugs busily beneath Dallas streets and
buildings. The picture was made in the tunnel under
the Santa Fe BuildingÕs second section."
.
Related article: ÒDallas Subway Already ExistsÓ
January 7, 1965, The Dallas Morning News, Sec. 1, p. 10
Posted By: Jim Wheat
Date: Friday, 19 November 2004, at 3:27 p.m.
In Response To: Dallas Underground Tunnels (Tait Lifto - http://www.dallastunnels.com)
.
Small Army Mans Vast
Underground of Dallas
By Ben Bradford
Dallas has a vast underground.
ItÕs a little known world, made up of tunnels,
basements, sub-basements, manhole vaults and
sewers that catacomb the city. And, itÕs manned by a
small army of men and women who make all or most of
their living beneath the earthÕs surface.
Few laymen know the enormity of the cityÕs
underground.
DallasÕ storm sewer system -- with some lines as much
as sixteen feet in diameter -- would permit a man
familiar with the system to travel beneath the surface
to nearly any point in the downtown section and to
many suburban areas.
A steam locomotive operates daily under Young and
Wood Streets, with its northern terminal directly under
the second section of the Santa Fe Building on
Jackson.
Two large tunnels pass under Main and Akard Streets
connecting the Hotel Adolphus and the Kirby and
Magnolia Buildings.
Most of the downtown streets and sidewalks are mere
shells over these underground installations.
Trackage Totals Two Miles.
DallasÕ underground railroad, operated by Santa Fe,
keeps six railroad men and around fifty dockhands
under the ground most of each day.
The locomotive dips under the earthÕs surface 300
yards south of Young Street and pushes along the main
underground line to Jackson Street. A labyrinth of
tunneled sidings boosts the lineÕs total trackage to
around two miles.
Each day, the little engine, in operation since 1924,
when the tunnel was completed, chugs in and out of
the tunnel -- unmindful of the heavy traffic above it --
with tons of merchandise for approximately a dozen
Dallas firms with underground docks.
Largest of Santa FeÕs underground customers is the
Dallas Transfer & Terminal Warehouse Company.
The engine operates with live steam, which is pumped
into its tanks at intervals of from three to four hours. It
can not produce its own steam because smoke would
make the tunnel untenable.
Cool in Summer, Says Worker.
W. B. Nail, 49, who has played nursemaid to the little
locomotive for the last five years, likes his underground
job.
ÒItÕs cool in the summer, and it never freezes in the
winter,Ó he explained.
The Dallas Power & Light Company, Southwestern Bell
Telephone Company and Western Union went
underground with their installations in the last half of
the 1920Õs in an effort to clear downtown streets of
telephone and power poles and a criss-crossed
network of power lines.
Now, there are 2,530 underground manhole vaults
beneath the cityÕs streets and sidewalks. These vaults
range from small 4x5-foot cubby-holes, to spaces as
large as a big living room.
The three companies keep a total of approximately
eighty-five workers underground each day on
maintenance work.
25 Years Spent Underground.
O. J. Jones, 55, of 1413 Peabody, went underground as
a DP&L cable splicer twenty-six years ago and has
been on below-the-surface work ever since. He likes it.
The grizzled, underground veteran puts it like this:
Ã’Some guys like the poles. But, pole work freezes a
man in winter and roasts him in the summer. ItÕs
always just about right in the vaults. Besides, I know a
few guys thatÕve fallen off poles -- but, I never heard
of anyone falling out of one of these holes.Ó
Hundreds of persons are employed in the basements
and sub-basements of the cityÕs large downtown
buildings. Basement job holders range from power
plant engineers to bank vault guards, bargain
basement clerks and pastry chefs.
The Hotel Adolphus employs 550 workers, 400 of them
in the hotelÕs mammoth five-level basement that drops
two complete stories below street level.
In the various basements are the laundry, power plant,
engineering department, bakery, butcher shop,
storerooms, ice plant, artesian well, carpenter shop,
paint shop, upholstery shop and merchandise receiving
room.
Office One of CityÕs Lowest.
W. A. Griffith, 49, took over his job as operating
engineer for the Hotel Adolphus five years ago. His
office is in the fifth sub-basement, one of the lowest in
the city.
Although Griffith has gone as long as a week at a time
without a glimpse of the sun during winterÕs short days,
he insists he had just as soon work underground as
above it.
P. A. Ingels, a native of Belgium, and pastry chef for
Hotel Adolphus since 1921, says heÕs none the worse
for the twenty-six years heÕs spent in the hotel
basement.
ÒI guess itÕs all in what you get used to,Ó he said,
adding, Òbut I do wish theyÕd hurry up with the air
conditioning they say theyÕre going to put down here.Ó
Felix Dyer, a retired Dallas policeman, who guards the
First National BankÕs underground vault, says flatly,
that underground work is better than pounding a beat
all day.
Miss Margueritte Chamberlain, who has had a
basement job at the bank for the last three years, says
she sees no difference between her job and one
upstairs.
Experts Currently at Work.
Approximately sixty expert underground workers, many
with extensive mining experience, are at work on the
two major tunneling projects currently under way in
the city.
The McKenzie Construction Company of San Antonio is
tunneling a 4,200-foot underground storm sewer in
connection with the Central Boulevard project and the
P. C. Sorenson Company of Dallas is at work on three
large sewer tunnels, totaling around 1,000 feet on the
east bank interceptor sewer project.
At present, the Sorenson company is midway through
with its tunnel under West Commerce between the
Triple Underpass and Industrial.
Underground laborers on the tunneling project receive
$1.25 an hour -- 45¢ more than above-ground common
labor.
Veteran Miner Likes Work.
G. S. Cross, the Sorenson companyÕs tunneling
superintendent and veteran coal miner, has survived
three mine cave-ins, but still likes his underground
work.
Thirty-five feet under the center of West Commerce last
week, he picked up a handful of damp earth from the
bank of earth his men were tunneling through, and
said:
ÒI reckon itÕs the challenge that I like about the
underground work. ItÕs always you and your men
against the tricky earth youÕre punching through.Ó
Walter C. Brown, his burly swing-shift foreman, nodded
agreement, then hopped nimbly out of the path of the
donkey cart of dirt, a winch and cable was hauling to
the tunnelÕs entrance.
- July 27, 1947, The Dallas Morning News, Sec. IV, p. 1.
[The article includes two photographs, one bearing the
caption:
Ã’Tunnel workers push a section of the east bank
interceptor sewer thirty-five feet beneath West
Commerce, between Industrial and Triple Underpass.
Left to right: Cap Larsen, co-contractor on the project;
J. A. Smith, laborer; K. R. Baker, city engineer; Walter C.
Brown, swing-shift foreman; G. S. Cross, tunnel
superintendent on the project, and Lynn Barner,
laborer."
the other photo, bears the caption:
"W. R. Nail, assistant Santa Fe roundhouse foreman, is
nursemaid to this odd-shaped underground locomotive
which chugs busily beneath Dallas streets and
buildings. The picture was made in the tunnel under
the Santa Fe BuildingÕs second section."
.
Related article: ÒDallas Subway Already ExistsÓ
January 7, 1965, The Dallas Morning News, Sec. 1, p. 10