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Monday, April 4, 2011

An Abandoned Underground Subway?

I found out some interesting and new information about an abandoned underground subway under downtown Burlington.

It stretches from the new Burlington Police Station all the way to the Burlington Hotel.  It could be farther or a bit shorter in length, but that was the rough length of the tunnel.

It was being worked on during the 1800's and then was later halted for an unknown reason.  It could be because of the creek that runs under the town somehow leaked into the tunnels, causing some ground water to build up.  Another reason could be because of how the Mississippi River was flooding back and forth so much that the water leaked into the tunnels.

The entrances, which I'm not for certain if they are closed off, are the new Burlington Police Station and the Burlington Hotel, both having a deep basement in order to access the two different entrances to the subway.  The steps going through these entrances is made out of wood, which its extremely dangerous to walk on due to the moisture buildup. A ladder would need to be put down into the entrance in order to get all the way down and back up safety.

Supposedly, the old Burlington Public Library, which might have moved the information to the new Burlington Public Library, has original blueprints and other information of it actually being worked on.

I have not looked into see if this was true or not, but a friend of mine has a friend that actually went down into these tunnels.

UPDATE:  Neither the Historical Society nor the Burlington's Public Works has any information of this whatsoever.  Therefore the information that was provided to me is false.

1 comment:

  1. There is truth to this. I actually help dig up a side walk in front of Burlington building north 3rd and Washington st. The city of Burlington is not going to tell you if there is or was tunnels under Burlington Iowa. Now I don’t think it was a sub way it’s more like a big tunnel that does in fact run from the what’s now the old police station to the Burlington hotel. Most of these building connect to one another or well use too.

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