Howdy everyone! Been getting back into the ue world lately, and discovered an interesting photo that I can't seem to find any more information about.

http://collections...&s=tunnel&record=5

The photo shows a tunnel emerging from underneath Canal St. Using the highway onramp sign as a reference, I've pinpointed the location where the photo was taken as the corner of 12th and Canal st, facing southwest.

However, with that said, I can't find any reference to this tunnel anywhere online. It's not:
-the Overton St. tunnel (too far away plus it was destroyed anyway).
-Church Hill tunnel, obviously
-Shockoe Creek Arch tunnel
-Pratt's Castle tunnel (shame, I'd take Tick up on that case of beer in a heartbeat).

My best guess at this point is that it was a canal tunnel, connecting the turning basin to the rest of the canals. But, according to to historical topos, this tunnel looks like it was slightly too far east to be connected to the turning basin.

Thinking about scouting the area soon, perhaps I can find some clues.

click to view

pretty cool. keep us posted if you find anything. Im only a hop skip from Richmond.

Oh, nice find.

I *believe* that this excavation is at the location of the old Gallego flour mill. This tunnel might be the mill tailrace (the water likely would have come from the canal turning basin).

click to view

Yep! With a little more research I found a map of the tailrace. Pretty neat that they constructed a tunnel for it, being the early 1800's. It would be so cool if it were still in existence and not filled in or destroyed!

click to view

Good stuff. Going by that map... in this picture, the waterfall on the right side of the bridge should be the outfall from the mill flume:

click to view

8 or 9 years ago, some guys (Random, Memphis I think, and one or two others) explored the tailrace at Tredagar Iron Works. I don't think they ever posted anything on here about it?

Yep, that's definitely it! Interestingly, that bridge is still standing downtown, surrounded by newer development. Here's a link to a modern picture of that same outfall: http://www.hmdb.or...r.asp?marker=23820

And that's awesome about the Tredegar tailrace, didn't think to look around there much. Anything cool to be found?

There are I think 4 outfalls into the Haxall Canal by Tredagar. 1 is Tredagar's tailrace, I believe the other 3 are combined sewer overflows. The guys I mentioned explored at least one of the CSO's - but they had to turn back because of bad air. I understand that getting into these tunnels is... tricky.

Ah that makes sense. Yeah entering from Haxall sounds like it would entail some challenges.

As a follow up on the topic, I finally got around to scouting the area this morning. The 13th street bridge itself is pretty neat despite being a public place, it sits tucked away between buildings and the Downtown Expressway, and cut off from the city in a sort of cruel exile. It's a good feeling standing in the old stone arch where the waterwheel flume of one of the largest flour mills used to outfall into the canal. Disappointingly, there's only about 10 feet of the unburied part of the flume before what looks like much newer boulders close off the flume parallel to the hillside above, acting as a retaining wall. There aren't any visible remnants of the tunnel, and no real way to tell where it emerged from the hillside.

So I moved on to the infall, hoping I might be able to determine if there was a chance the tunnel still existed farther up. I had scouted a suspicious manhole with Google street view, so I grabbed some pebbles and headed up. Today is Thanksgiving, so it was very quiet downtown. No cars made me feel a little more at ease. I dropped two pebbles down one side of the manhole, they both clinked almost immediately then fell maybe 4 or 5 feet. The other side didn't clink but fell about the same distance. Discouraged it wasn't deeper, I went to go peer through a huge drainage grate across the driveway to a basement service entrance for a tall building. Well this was muuuuch deeper, maybe 15 feet down on one half and probably close to 30 feet on the side closest to the street. It appeared to stretch in both ways away from the grate, looking like a huge underground cavern. With it being daytime and not having any equipment, I headed back to my car.

I wonder if this large drain hole would allow access to the tunnel, it looks to be about in the perfect place and right depth. The only problem is that there doesn't appear to be an easy way in...