Church Hill Tunnel Multi-Cache

In the years following the Civil War, the Shockoe Valley was the hub of the city and trains were the key to commerce. When the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad suggested a tunnel under Church Hill would be the best way to go, Richmond's City Council came up with a $300,000 bond in 1871. In February 1872, work started on the more than half a mile long tunnel at both ends, with a force of more than 400 men. This was the first effort to tunnel through Richmond's many hills and there were many signs that the geology wasn't well-suited to the attempts. In May, there were two separate collapses in the vertical shafts dug to access the tunnels. By January, cracks were appearing in the ground of Church Hill above the tunnel. They became serious enough to evacuate residents on January 13 and on January 14 a section between 24th and 25th streets collapsed, ruining three houses and the Third Presbyterian Church. In the end, the tunnel took almost a year longer than expected and cost more than twice the original estimate. Nonetheless, when it opened on December 11, 1873 it was hailed as an engineering marvel and a great success. Until 1902, trains used it as the regular route to the Main Street station. At that time, the current route along the river on the high trestle (next to our Ship, Lock and Key cache) was opened and the C&O stopped using the tunnel. The primary reason for building this route was apparently the delays in traffic when trains entered the tunnel at the western portal. In 1913 the city extended the eastern end of the tunnel, but serious efforts to reopen it didn't arrive until 1925.

C&O began serious efforts to repair and reopen the tunnel in the Fall of 1925. In September, surface damage above the tunnel was noted and railroad crews began inspecting and preparing the tunnel to reopen. On October 2, 1925 engineer Thomas J. Moson drove a locomotive pulling 10 flatcars nearly all the way through the tunnel, parking around 100 to 150 feet from the western portal. As workers were digging at the foundations, a brick or two rained down from the roof. As the workman ran frantically to safety, the tunnel collapsed completely burying Mason and crushing the train, sending scalding steam in all directions. The fireman, Benjamin Mosby was seriously burned by the steam, but managed to crawl under the train and walk a mile or more to the other exit. Unfortunately, he died in the hospital later than night. The conductor, G.C. McFadden, escaped with a broken arm and the brakeman, C.S. Kelso suffered head injuries. There is some controversy concerning the others trapped in the collapse. C&O initially reported one African-American laborer was unaccounted for and later amended the list to two. One was Richard Lewis and the other was H. Smith. There have been a variety of reports that claim variously that Smith actually escaped and was later seen elsewhere or that as many as 15 other African-Americans remain buried in the tunnel. Record keeping was clearly not up to modern standards and most of the 200 or so laborers were hired day to day and no one really knows who may have been trapped in the collapsed tunnel. A massive excavation and rescue effort was halted once the body of Mason was located and the rest of the collapsed section has never been excavated and searched, so no one can say for sure.

If you like, you could walk 150 feet up the hill into the park and stand near 37° 32.151 77° 25.374. That would be a spot very close to where the train rests today directly under your feet. The coordinates we've selected for the second location aren't quite over the top of the tunnel, but it isn't far from it. It should give you a very clear view of why the tunnel was needed. At the point where you stand, the tunnel is about 100 feet below the surface.

You are now overlooking the other side of the tunnel. The train tracks you see are essentially the same ones that were in place in the 19th century. They just curved alongside the hill you are standing on and went into the ground under the hill just to your right. You can check your GPS to see how far you are from the first location. It would have been a terrible walk in the dark after the collapse of the tunnel. All of the men (variously reported as being from 100 to 200 or more) who escaped from the collapse, escaped this way.

The octagonal building you see to your left (as you face the river!) also sits on a fairly well-known underground structure. This is the site of a mid-1800s German brewery and they had six massive brick vaults to store their beer buried just under the building. The biggest vault is more than 500 square feet and they have to be inspected periodically when they have earth slides here. I am told there is no beer left.

As with almost any Richmond site, it is impossible to avoid Civil War history. You are standing on the site of a large Southern hospital during the war. It occupied 40 acres all around the area where you stand. It could hold over 3,000 patients and treated more than 76,000 during the war years. The mortality rate here was 10% (some reports say 20%), which wouldn't make MCV very happy, but was in fact quite extraordinary at the time. It was said to have been the largest military hospital in the world at the time.

You are also loosely in the area of Powhatan's Seat, the legendary home of the famous Indian leader who is perhaps best known today as Pocahontas' father. There are interesting historical markers along the ridge of this famous Hill.

The way the cache is hidden is a bit of a joke. It is a very common method, carried to a bit of an extreme. We may eventually change it, but it amused us at the time.

Should you be interested, the other portal of the tunnel is located near 77° 31.611 77° 24.892. You can continue on the trail you took to the cache or you could start from the end of Franklin Street (near 31st). The property is still owned by the railroad, although clearly abandoned. It is an even more depressing dump than the other portal. If you were especially adventurous and not too concerned with the legal niceties, you might crawl through the hold cut in the chain link fence into the tunnel itself. If you were even more bold, you might find a place where you could crawl through and go a surprisingly long way into the tunnel. Not that I think it is a very good idea. I'd hate for it to collapse on you.