Underground Tunnels of Minneapolis

[maplelakeduckslayer]

My dad and his college buddies have talked about digging these tunnels under Minneapolis while in college back in the late 70's/early 80's

Anyone work on the same tunnels or know what exactly they were for?

I've seen a few urban exploration things talking about these and the "labyrinth" under St Paul

Seems most were for utilities and abandoned. Kinda interesting stuff. I'll have to ask him more about it around his buddies sometime.

They went to Macalester college...which is hilarious if you know the type of people my dad and buddies are. But that was a slightly different time...they were still misfits back then. Recruited for their horrible football team

[Drunk_Dynasty]

Been in some of big SP ones for work. Some seriously crazy shit. I will post some pics if I still have them. Many people that aren’t in their right mind have made a home in some of these storm sewer systems. Gay porn from magazines plastered to the walls right next pages ripped out of childrens books kind of craziness.


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[emptymag]

A smallish town I’d use to do utility work for had some crazy tunnels. I still remember where one of the main tunnel meets another. Could really mess some shiz up if the wrong person got in there, or you could die from the methane. We always had meters and had for blow them out with a trailer mounted fan and hose system.

[Fish Felon]

The tunnels are the result of the true genius of one of America's greatest geniuses----Henry Ford.

The tunnels were created by the Ford plant. Henry Ford chose the site when there was nothing there....MSP was so small that the Ford plant site was out in the country, not even connected to the emerging cities. Ford being the true genius he was had already started developing his efficient and powerful nation crossing network of distribution that was emerging into factories. Ford figured out that regional factories were more efficient and effective for business....they were less expensive than shipping vehicles, and by making different vehicles in different plants....Ford spread out his political power nationwide....regional factories employed lots of people, were big business wherever they were, and thus afforded him political leverage across the country. Had he favored building up his empire in his home state he would've been to susceptible to that state's oversight and labor pool. By having a nationwide web of factories he was able to become big enough business across the country to put together his network......it would've been much harder to conduct business....even just shipping his autos across state lines would've been met by all kinds of excessive regulation and cost by legislatures in states where their citizens had no ties to his brand. The St. Paul plant on the river bordering Minneapolis employed a ton of people and treated them well. If you lived in MSP back then? Everyone had a neighbor, family member, or friend who worked at the plant....if they didn't themselves. Every block in both cities, especially South MPLS, Highland Park area of STP.....everyone knew multiple men who went to work every day at the plant, raised a family, and lived in a house just like theirs working at the plant. Instead of state legislators bilking Ford trying to nickel and dime him at every move trying to have his commerce cross states without any business of his own within it......he was able to avoid having the tail wag the dog. State Legislatures didn't tell Ford what business he could do in their states for what prices.....Ford had the greatest grass roots political power.....the plant would explain to their employees what made business sense for Ford, and those employees filled in everyone they knew....and it would've political suicide for any state representative to not back his constituents. Ford was truly brilliant and that was how he made sure government helped him facilitate more efficient commerce, instead of hindering.

Most people don't know the story of the Ford Plant.....maybe remember that it made Rangers. What they don't know is that was only at the end of what was once the greatest, most beautiful, most efficient....the St. Paul Ford plant was the greatest plant ever conceived by the genius who created the assembly line....conceived of the modern factory.....the St. Paul plant was a wonderful piece of art. Ford was an artist. I would argue that the architecture, conception, and in-house efficiency seen only at the Ford plant is a more artistic masterpiece than anything Frank Lloyd Wright ever did.

Picture Ford coming to MN and acquiring a large chunk of land where the Ford plant was when there wasn't a single man-made structure in sight. He boated down the river putting in after St. Anthony Falls and surveyed the land himself. Everyone thought he was fukcing nuts for thinking about building a plant there.

Joke was on them all once Ford did it. He was able to build his own dam and hydro power plant that not only provided all the power for his plant, but extra power he sold to the cities. He was able to get the railroads to build rail to his plant....it had it's own railroad shipyard. The plant didn't need to go get materials and bring them to the plant....the plant had anything and everything be delivered to them by the railroads. Ford found all kinds of ways to be more efficient and have his factories be as self-sustaining, self-contained, and operate by having whatever needed right there.....the plants were their own independent little world, the St. Paul plant was the most beautiful crown jewel in his network of factories......

.....and the most brilliant part was they never had to ever have a single piece of glass shipped in for any of the automobiles.....no supplies either......

Ford picked the plant site because of the exceptionally high quality of the limestone it was sitting on, and good limestone makes for the best silica sand, and silica sand makes for the best glass. The tunnels you're talking about were created by all the fords leaving the plant with glass on them made on-site.....the windshield and windows on the vehicles leaving the plant is where what came out of the ground to create them went.....there's no tilling piles for what came out of those cases in order to dig them....all that substrate left in the form of auto glass.

As the tunnels grew, and plant, they were used for all moving and storing stuff around the plant. They were tunnels that went under the river and you could literally drive a Ford off the assembly line in St. Paul and go under the river, come out on the MPLS side, and drive into down town. Those empty tunnels stored a lot of cars at a lot of times, and various other parts and materials for the factory at different stages of production.

Ford was a true genius.....he was every bit as much an artist as he was an industrial tycoon. Those tunnels are remnants of his once greatest work.....the St. Paul plant was his Mona Lisa, and he knew it, and so did everyone else back during those days in an America about to burst from it's seams into great prosperity.

[lanyard]

The tunnels under downtown St. Paul are dug through the limestone and what I would consider "pure tunnels". And can confirm, some crazy shit.

Minneapolis seemed to have two sets: ones built into caves along the river bluffs and then constructed tunnels where they just dug sh!t and basically made subteranean skyways.

Used to run a coring and drilling company, got inside a lot of weird places.

[Stute Slap]

I used to live in St Paul and one time they did some work right in down town on a hillside and excavated a huge hole on the side of the hill....I think it was like two blocks east one like one block south of Mickey's diner. Anyway while digging out the street they cut across an old ass tunnel and there was zero security or anyone around at night I went in it.....it was crazy. I didn't totally explore it but basically appeared to be a lot of connected super old tunnels under the city.

I also remember a popular exploration of an old tunnel called like "triple helix" google it. Or google "action squad" which is a group of people that explore stuff in the metro. Pretty cool

[Drunk_Dynasty]

I’ve been at the top of the triple helix. Never went down. There used to be a Halloween manikin at the top. I came to the stairs from the upstream side, and when my headlamp first hit the manikin I thought it was a person trying to stand still and not be seen.

I gripped the manhole pick tight and stepped forward… only to see it was a headless Halloween prop. Sadly someone stole it tho, according the max action it was there a long time ago.

We’ve had our equipment fu(ked with, and people are honestly lucky they didn’t get hurt pulling on cables. We put up “danger high voltage signs” even tho nothing is high voltage but it always works lol.

We had a huge storm go thru, and not long after our sh1t got messed with. Super dangerous for people in there. If you’re going to do urban exploring, for God’s sake check the forecast. Some of these 9 foot pipes had trash stuck to the top of the step.


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[Nershi]

Used to live with some macalaster students on Grand right after I got out of college. Super interesting, smart and fun loving people. Almost brought a girl home with me when I moved back north. Just don’t bring up politics. Some of the gun debates were pretty good.

We went down to the tunnels a few times. Couple times on a headful which was difficult to navigate in a lot of ways and things turned dark quick. I preferred to stick to the limestone dugouts along the river.

I am too claustrophobic to venture in very far even stone sober. There are lots of tunnels in other cities too. I’ll stick topside.

[Fish Felon]

http://www.actionsquad.org/ford.htm

[Drunk_Dynasty]

I wonder if all those Ford tunnels are still there. I know of one that comes out the bluff that it looks like a guy could walk up for miles. Been too scared to walk up there tho.

The Ford plant area has been totally redone now if y’all haven’t been there in a while.


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