I see a severed pipe and what looks like a wiring conduit going into the tunnel, so it might have had power and some other utility in the past. The depth and length of the tunnel certainly seems a bit overkill for a root cellar.
Ya'll better get photos before I find my waders and go hunting for this place myself!
I looked into it, the house wasn't built until 1933 and the tunnel looks like it was added afterwards. I think Blackhawk is right about the root cellar though, especially with all the mason jars left behind in the basement.
There's only one way to find out though, so I plan to go back and check it out soon enough. I'll share whatever it is I find!
Root cellar may just be its most recent use. If there's a spring feeding into it, it may also have been a cistern. You never know whether you have something cool or "Al Capone's Vault" until you look into it further.
I've encountered a few houses with tunnels off the basement.
An abandoned house near New Milford, PA with such a tunnel was purported by local lore to be part of the Underground Railroad, but I could never find anything to back up that claim.
There was another house with a tunnel like that near Cuddebackville, NY. The building records showed the house was built in the 1935.
Further research found that it was the second house on that site and the original house was related to Prohibition-era bootlegging. The original house burned, purportedly arson by rival bootleggers.
Posted by 6sayytann6 Noticed this big yellow beauty of a farmhouse on the side of the road and decided to see if it was truly abandoned or not. Upon pulling up its driveway we noticed the broken windows and open nature of the house. The property was massive and included extremely overgrown fields, a four story barn, chicken coops and a good sized garage/work shed. Many of the belongings were still in the house, including personal information, medical itinerary on the fridge full of spoiled food and a handwritten note kept form 1969 amongst many, many other belongings.
But by far one of the strangest finds I've encountered in a house was in the basement.
We climbed down the skinny stars cut out of the slanted cement ramp into the basement. An overwhelming smell of gasoline and pitch black darkness surrounded us. Lots of left behind mugs and mason jars, some with stored green beans in them. Stacks of rusted paint and primer buckets stacked in a closet. The creepiest thing was under the wooden stairwell from the kitchen. Behind a cupboard laid slightly askew from the wall was a tunnel. It looked hand chiseled out of the earth and cemented. It jetted outside of the buildings foundation and came to a "T" intersection with a light on the ceiling at that point. It was only about two and a half feet tall and flooded about 3-6 inches with water. We didn't go down it, but we plan to possibly go back with some better gear and scope it out better.
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Anybody have any idea what this could be? We came up with it possibly being a bunker, but not entirely sure. Might have to go in to find out!
Ethics
