Gunnison Tunnel Series: A Leap of Faith, pt 2

Immigrants Journey to the Gunnison Tunnel

• Episode 2– The Tunnel’s Construction

• Digging for your life

  • It’s 10 am on Tuesday May 30th 1905.  Construction in the Gunnison Tunnel has been progressing for the last 5 months. But… the first deadly accident of the tunnel’s construction has just occurred. The first, unfortunately, of many that would occur over the next 5 years. There’s just been a cave-in that was more like an explosion, than a slow avalanche. It’s pitch black, the soaking adobe mud and timbers have come to a halt, and here we find one Charles Smithley. Buried… alive, and somehow with air to breath. Having taken a moment to let his inner ear tell him which direction is UP, he notices he is holding another hand. Giving it a squeeze he gets a quick response. Someone else has survived… with every ounce of strength, Smithley, kicks, fights, digs, trying to reach up the arm of his companion to his face…. To no avail. 

  • But then he hears something….. 

    • Dirt settling….
    • Yells…. “Schuler!!!!!!!” “Smithley!!!!!!!!”
    • Dirt settles
    • “YES – SMITHLEY HERE!!! HELP!!!!”
  • Then… just silence. And blackness. Two hours pass, and finally… the hand, once comforting, now… no longer moves, then within minutes… grows cold. And here something incredible happens that only those that have experienced it understand. The will to live takes over, and Smithley fights. Fights like a mom lifting a car, fallen on her son, like the prey animal escaping the jaws of death. Smithley, scrapes, wriggles, digs, and pries himself down to where it feels the dirt is looser. The Tunnel has a trench on one side of the floor where water infiltrating the tunnel is channeled to drain out. They called it the “boxing”.  Here Smithley finds an opportunity, his chance… to live. Somehow water in the boxing is still flowing, and moving some dirt. He finds if he wriggles his body down Into the boxing there is enough loose dirt that he can make the tiniest bit of forward progress.
  • He finds the ONLY way his fighting and squirming make any forward progress is if he puts his face down in the boxing, using his scull lie a dull drill bit to PUUUUSH forward, then unable to hold his breath any longer, he turns and lifts his head to breath… somehow breath through the clodded adobe mud, then restoring a modicum of oxygen to his muscles, he’d buries his face again in the flowing water and fights forward – inch by inch by inch by inch.  His  only hope the voices he heard, now hours ago.   

• Intro

  • Hi, my name is Brody Wilson, and I live in the Uncompahgre Valley. I’m a mechanical engineer here in Colorado, and work in corporate sustainability, but having grown up right next to the primary canal that carries Gunnison Tunnel Water, my life was shaped and infused, by the water that flows through this tunnel. This is the second of four episodes in which I’m telling you the story of the Gunnison Tunnel, and associated canals, collectively known as “The Uncompahgre Project”. In the last episode we covered the tunnel’s conception and the daring early survey work.  In this and the next episodes we cover the early construction, and in the fourth and final episode we cover the system’s operation and impact today. 
  • I’m telling this story because most of us take our water for granted, and for those of us that live in the arid Western US, there’s a story like this behind every city, town,  and agricultural valley in the west. And while water is sure to remain a crucial issue for decades to come in the Colorado River Basin, I think we’ll all make better decisions if we understand just how much has gone into enabling our water use, our way of life,  today. Let’s continue our story?

• Getting to Construction (The State Canal)

  • In Episode 1 we left off with the dare devil adventures of Torrence and Fellows. Having collected engineering knowledge that a tunnel was possible. It was time for the politicians to do their thing.

    • Remember though – there are still people that think this idea is impossible. Nevertheless several representatives and senators in the Colorado State Legislature were pushing for the State of Colorado to fund the Tunnel. There was an idea that they might get the thing built on the cheap using state prisoners as labor… and Meade Hammond, the State Rep from Delta introduced HB195 in 1901, and others in the Colorado legislature bought-in, and $25,000 (only half of what Hammond had asked for) was appropriated for detailed surveys and to begin construction. The tunnel was a super important for several West Slope legislatures, including one guy, Senator Buckly, who, despite being confined to his Hospital bed with Tuberculosis – was carried to the Senate chamber to vote in favor of the Bill. (another great example of the perseverance of those who made the tunnel happen), but I gotta say, I wonder how many people he infected with Tuberculosis  casting that vote. Jeesh. 
  • It was going to be called “State Canal Number 3”, and they were planning a route further to the north, downstream of where the tunnel is today.

  • The State plan was kinda wild – it actually involved digging TWO tunnels. 

    • This is really best seen on a map, which you can check out the my accompanying show notes.

  • They were going to build a dam at “The Falls of Sorrow” (what we now call “The Narrows” today), and first bore a tunnel to the north west in an area where the canyon does a hard dog leg to the west. The first tunnel would emerge high on the canyon wall (but still in the canyon) actually immediately across from what’s called “The Painted Wall” today. Then they planned to build an aqueduct, along the canyon wall for about 1.7 miles. Then finally head west through Vernal Mesa in a second tunnel, this one about 3.8 miles long. It would have been a total of about 5.4 miles of tunnels, PLUS the 1.7 miles of aqueduct high on the canyon wall. It was complicated to say the least.

    • You can check out the maps I made showing all the aspects of the story in the show notes. 
  • And so on November 21st, 1901 started digging the tunnel for State Canal No.3. This was just 93 days after Fellows and Torrence finished their expedition. The convict labor thing ended up not working out, because of “unforeseen costs related to the construction of a stockade for the prisoners”, or other “other legal reasons” – the historical record is unclear). The idea all along, with this state funded effort was to attract private investment to build the tunnel. Everyone knew $25,000 wasn’t enough to build it. 
  • But alas, and to no ones real surprise the project ran out of money. 
  • But a state engineer’s report in 1902 showed that they actually made really good progress. 835 feet1  of tunnel was dug and timbered on the West/Uncompahgre end, including two ventilation shafts and 5 miles of wagon road to get to the site. The site, of course now abandon, is still there – and is noted on older topo maps of the area.

• Getting to Construction (Here come the feds)

  • But thankfully, the wheels of Western Expansion and Reclamation were really rolling back in Washington, (yea, “reclamation” like reclaiming the land and water back from nature, for human use – re-claim-ation.)  Newly elected Teddy Rosevelt, and the houses of Congress were ready to invest real money into building economic opportunity for our nation in the West. And on June 17th 1902 The Reclamation Act was passed, and the US Reclamation Service (now called the Bureau of Reclamation) was formed.
  • Now… thanks to the work of one congressman John C.   from Montrose, who had introduced a separate bill to fund the tunnel a year earlier - Funding for the Gunnison Tunnel Diversion Project was included in the ultimate Reclamation Act of June 19021.
  • The feds… had stepped in and stepped up, big time, ultimately committing $6.7 Million to the project by 19231.  Funds far beyond anything local investors, private equity, citizens of the valley, or the state Colorado could have ever come up with. 
  • But! this wasn’t a hand-out.
  • The federal monies released for this project were in the form of a zero interest loan. The shareholders of the recently formed Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association – would have to pay the tax payers back – every penny - and they did so over the next several decades.

  • The Gunnison River Diversion Project as it was referred to at the time, was 1 of “The first 5” projects included in and funded by the Reclamation act of 1902. The others were:

    • The Milk River Project in Montana
    • Newlands Project in Nevada
    • North Platte Project in Nebraska and Wyoming, and the 
    • Salt River Project in Arizona
  • The following March 1903 the US Secretary of the Interior authorized $2.5 million for the project, and just two days later the CO legislature authorized the transfer of all of the property and other rights associated with the State Canal No. 3. 

• The Leader Emerges – Introducing Ira W. McConnell

  • And in that summer of 1903 a character emerges into our story that plays a major role.

    • Intro Ira McConnell Music

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  • Ira W. McConnell, a graduate of Cornell’s School of Engineering and a US Geological Survey Engineer . McConnel is 31 years old, and is placed in charge of the topographic work for the project on in June 1903. There was really no other “work” for the project at the time so he… was kinda… the guy. 

• Now Ira McConnell – was also insanely brave and daring – just like Torrence & Fellows from our last episode. In fact McConnell had spent the previous summer (of 1902) risking his life, basically repelling down into the canyon around the Falls of Sorrow to perform critical surveying tasks with a few other brave souls, all USGS engineers. Remember these guys didn’t have the same kind of nice climbing gear we have today, they’re basically sliding down fixed ropes to get where they need to be. Throughout these survey efforts they were climbing from the rim of the canyon to the river’s edge every day… for weeks on end. If you’d never done it – be careful – climbing 2000 vertical feet in less than a mile is very difficult.

• So McConnell, 31, through a series of events we’ll cover – ends up being the chief construction engineer of the entire Gunnison Tunnel Project. The New York Times had this to say about him at the time. 

  • The next man on the scene was I. W. McConnell, now constructing engineer of the Gunnison Tunnel, and better known in the service as “Gunnison” McConnell. Folks out there sized him up as a shy sophomore; now they take off their hats to him. They find fault with him for one thing, however, which is that he is not given to talk.

• Here was a guy who clearly thought that actions speak louder than words, and apparently lived by that motto. He wrote an article for the first annual conference of engineers of the reclamation service, in this report he very plainly describes their surveying efforts from the summer before around The Narrows, or “Falls of Sorrow”, wherein they first thought they’d dam and divert the river. He describes which trails they took and how they rappelled down to key survey points. And… when I follow his descriptions closely from a perspective down in the canyon…  the kinds of things these guys were climbing with nothing but a rope was crazy.

  • I’ll include a link to McConnell’s report in the show notes so you can read it if you’re interested.

• Wisdom and foresight emerge – a new site is selected

  • Have you ever worked really hard on something… like for years… invested your professional credibility in it? Then… changed your mind?? Decided that you’d actually been going down the wrong path all along? 

  • Well… that’s exactly what Ira McConnell did. After working for nearly a year, risking life and limb surveying in excruciating detail the dam site for State Canal No.3, at The Falls of Sorrow, he stepped back and during the winter of 1903-1904 while pouring over his and all of the others’ survey data – he took a bigger perspective… He realized that their plans, and those of the previous State engineers were… unnecessarily complicated. While the Falls of Sorrow were a very attractive dam site with very narrow steep hard rock walls, there was a site about 5 miles upstream in a much wider section of the canyon that simplified many of their engineering and logistical challenges.

    • Interestingly this was the Site recommended by Flemming and Whynera (remember those guys from our first episode? They were one of the early survey parties before the Pelton Expedition. 
  • The lower Falls of Sorrow site actually required TWO tunnels, and a complicated flume.  All of the equipment and materials for the dam would have to be lowered into the canyon by CABLE CAR a road was out of the question. Also, the upstream site was significantly higher allowing for more of the Uncompahgre valley to be irrigated, a road was possible, and water could be diverted with a , yes wider, but low head dam.

  • So Ira McConnel, like any wise engineer, sought the professional opinion of his peers, and they visited the sites together in May 9th 1904.

    • [DON’T READ]  Among those present were of Arthur David, George Wisner, and W. H. Sanders, Colorado State Engineer, L. G. Carpenter, and several district and resident engineers of Montrose.
  • Together this group agreed with McConnell’s recommendation that the upper “Boat Landing” landing site was indeed a better location for the East portal – and with that decision they abandon the approach McConnell and team had spent the last summer daringly surveying.
  • So, with the site of the tunnel selected, and the $2.5million in federal funding approved that summer, Ira McConnel and the Gunnison Tunnel were off to the races.

• Off to the Races, Building fundamental infrastructure (Summer 1904 – to ground Breaking January 1905)

  • As anyone in project management for a big construction project knows, there is a TON of work to be done before you can break ground. For this project there was fundamental infrastructure, communications, contracts, that all needed to be in place before a single foot of tunnel could be excavated. 
  • So – McConnel and team spent the rest of that summer of 1904, performing detailed survey’s of the valley, as well as of the newly selected Boat landing location and a road from the rim down to this location.

  • The road was essentially complete by October 1st, 1904, less than 5 months after the East portal location was selected – this road is a feat of engineering and construction in an of itself. It was dug primarily by hand – like with picks and shovels – also black powder – lots of black powder too -  and at times reaches grades of 23%.

    • If you’re looking for a thrill - you can actually drive this road today… just be sure to keep your car in first gear, and I dare you to imagine doing with in a horse drawn carriage carrying a ton of coal.  a dicey proposition.
    • Today’s road deviates from the original path in a few key locations to make it less steep than the original, but nonetheless, it’s still a thrilling drive. 

  • That summer was also full of paperwork for Mr. McConnell – doing the actual engineering of the tunnel – how steeply should it slope?, how big should it be, where exactly should it emerge from vernal mesa? 

    • Remember that Point A has to be higher than Point B if you want water to flow from A to B – and so
  • Every decision about tunnel location and slope had cascading ripple-through implications, effecting the engineering of the canal system that would distribute the water. Ira McConnel and his growing team had to engineer the tunnel before anyone could even begin to design a canal. 
  • The summer of 1904 was also busy preparing Requests for proposals and specifications so potential contractors (the guys that would actually dig & build the tunnel – would know what they were being asked to build.

  • I went to the National Archives in Broomfield, CO to look at the records stored by the Bureau of Reclamation on this project and they were SO fascinating.   

    • I’ll include images of some of these materials in the show notes for this episode. 
  • One particularly fascinating document I found was a “Tabulation of Bids” for the Gunnison Tunnel. The one I saw was a blueprint – (like an old fashion copy) of the original, and still  - 120 years later – it reeked of the chemicals used in the blue-print copying process. 

• This “bid tabulation” shows the bid breakdown from 10 bidders. With all of the pricing based on a cost per liner foot, and they broke down those costs, by the type of soils they thought they’d be digging through. Right – it’s easier, cheaper to dig through soft adobe dirt, than it is to dig through hard granite. (Note here I didn’t say safer…)
• Bids were received from companies as far away as Pittsburg, and as close as Denver, and Pueblo. Their total costs for the tunnel and the “Approach Cut” on the West Portal, ranged from $2.4 M from to $1M. Now – that’s quite a spread. Some people looked at this project and said – I think that’ll cost $2.4 Million, and the low bidder, and Company Called Taylor Moore from Texas, they say nah…. We think it’s only a million.  Guess who the Reclamation services awarded a contract to? 
• That’s right, Taylore Moore. They were reputable, and in a letter he sent back-east back-east McConnell said all of their costing assumptions checked out with his, and so they got the job. 
• At the same time they were bidding and negotiating the tunnel contract, they were designing, and requesting bids for the Canal System as well, and in all instances (at least that I found records for in the National Archives), McConnell and team always selected the lowest bidder, and those low bidders were often lower by significant margin.
• The other piece of work they did that summer was to build a phone line from the Boat Landing site – now called the “East Portal”, over to the West portal, and on-to the Reclamation Service office in Montrose. While easy for us to overlook today when communication over a distance is taken for granted, this phone line would be essential for the success of the project. And I understand that this phone line was for an actual phone – that transferred the sound of your voice – not just a telegram line for sending text via morse code. Sill if you wanted to send a message long distances at the time – say back to DC. That had to go via telegram (morse code over physical wires for thousands of miles) or the physical mail – what we call “snail mail” today.

• BREAK

• Contracts awarded 

  • So after a busy summer of road construction, engineering, contracts, and procurement paperwork, the Tunnel construction contract was awarded to a company from Hillsborrow Texas called Taylor-Moore in January of 1905.
  • The contract called for excavation and lining of 30,582 feet of tunnel (that’s 5.8 miles) and of a cut at the west portal of nearly 2000 feet long. Taylore Moore’s bid was for $1 008 500 and they planned to be completed by April 15, 1908. Contracts were also awarded for construction of the three major canals canals which, associated with other open-air features would cost about $1,250,000. Note The canals already cost MORe than the tunnel.

• A US Reclamation Service office was built in Montrose (An historic building that is now the office of the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association), as well as basic shelters for workers on the West Portal and East (or River) portal. 
• And on January 11th, 1905, without a whole lot of fanfare…  they broke ground at BOTH ends of the tunnel.

• But who builds?

  • But wait… who is going to build this thing? This is a HUGE project. Even if you took every able bodied man in the valley, you wouldn’t have the labor, or skill to get the job done. It turns out that people came from all over the world to build this tunnel. 

• A Tale of Two Immigrant Families

  • Hi, my name is Elaine Hale Jones and I’m a fourth generation native of the Uncompahgre Valley. 

    • Music bed starts?
  • As part of this episode, I’m going to share some of my own family’s history as it relates directly to the construction of the Gunnison Tunnel.

• Two of my great-grandfathers (on my mother’s side) moved to the area in the early 1900’s. Both left good-paying jobs; were married and raising   families; and came with one goal in mind—find steady employment at one of the first federally-funded projects to reclaim arid lands for agriculture … The Gunnison Tunnel Project. The irrigation project was located along the eastern and western boundaries of the Black Canyon Gorge.
• But most importantly, they came with a vision—to eventually homestead land and provide more opportunities for their children. Before I tell you more about their remarkable journeys as first-generation Americans, let’s set the stage:

• Following much publicity about the removal of the Utes from the valley in 1881, this isolated area was now open for settlement. 

• From its earliest beginnings, Montrose attracted a diverse group of people from the East Coast and Midwest. The construction of the Gunnison Tunnel, in particular, drew a large number of European immigrants to the area, including many skilled craftsmen.

• These early pioneers were met with a dry, windswept landscape and limited water resources. Remember, large-scale agriculture and efforts to make this semi-arid desert bloom were dreams of the future.

• It was a land perhaps best described by early-day cowboy, Sidney Jocknick, in his book, “Early Days On The Western Slope.” He recounted one of the first cattle drives into the Uncompahgre Valley from the east in 1875. 
• “On the following day under a blazing sun, without water for ourselves or horses, we started out on the down grade along Cedar Creek (Cerro Summit) through blinding clouds of dust. Dust was everywhere, a dust that was all pervading, emphasizing the dry season …”
• “The herd stampeded in a bee-line for what was undoubtedly the Uncompahgre River. As they bounded along with lowering horns and elevated tails, the herd resembled a multitude of tumble weeds seen upon a prairie on a windy day.”

• McCarricks

  • A similar landscape greeted my great-grandparents, Laura and James McCarrick, when they moved from Denver to Montrose in May 1905.
  • Here’s how their journeys began: James immigrated to the United States from Montreal in 1876. An only child, orphaned at age 12, he came to Denver by way of Minnesota traveling with an uncle. He later worked as a motorman for the Denver City Tram Company. 
  • My great-grandmother, Laura Perlick, also immigrated to America in the same year. She was one of seven sisters who came to America before the turn of the century leaving behind their native homeland of Pomerania (northern region of Germany near the Baltic Sea), following the deaths of their parents.

• Eldest sister, Augusta, made the first voyage to America in July 1871, and traveled by train to Denver where she found work with a wealthy family as a domestic servant. When she had saved enough money, she sent for the next sister in line … and so on. 
• Amazingly, my great-grandmother, Laura, was only 12 years old when she sailed to America accompanied by her 17 year-old sister, Franziska. They too made their way to Denver, and also found work as domestic servants. 
• At the age of 18, Laura married James McCarrick in Denver, and they started their family.
• With news spreading about the Gunnison Tunnel Project and an opportunity to find land to homestead, James, Laura and four of their children traveled to Montrose by train in May 1905. All of their personal belongings, including an upright piano, marble-topped furniture, a plow, and a cow were loaded onto a boxcar for transport. 
• When the family arrived at the train station in Montrose, there were no relatives or friends to greet them, nor was there any form of transportation waiting to take them to their final destination. Faced with few options, and leaving their prized possessions on the platform, the family walked five miles from the depot to available land located east of town near Cedar Creek.
• Soon after their arrival, James found work at the Gunnison Tunnel. In the meantime, the family lived in a large tent until a house could be built.
• During this time, families, as well as tunnel workers, anxiously awaited the completion of the irrigation project.
• OK – so the McCarrick’s came from Montreal Quebec and from Germany, pretty typical immigrants, but the lure of free land and good jobs inspired them to take a leap to pursue work in the tunnel. 

• Bellgardts

  • In 1906 my other great-grandparents, Matilda and Albert Bellgardt, made the momentous decision to leave their home in Dortmund, Germany and come to America.
  • It wasn’t without some prompting, however. Several years earlier, Matilda’s brother, August Kallwey, had immigrated to America and worked as a tailor in Chicago. Hearing about the rapid opening of the west, he moved to Montrose and homesteaded land on Spring Creek Mesa, west of Montrose. Realizing the vast opportunities here, he wrote to his sister, encouraging the couple to leave the heavily industrialized Ruhr Valley in central Germany.
  • (Sidenote: Rock quarried from August Kallwey’s property west of town was used to build the Montrose County Courthouse).
  • Albert, a coal miner by trade, took a giant leap of faith and made his way to Colorado in April 1906. He found immediate employment at the Gunnison Tunnel, setting large bridge timbers to help support the inside of the six-mile long tunnel, now under full construction. In addition to the grueling work, the language barrier between tunnel workers proved challenging. The majority of his shift bosses were Irish immigrants.
  • He found a place to live at the government town of Lujane, located about 10 miles east of Montrose. The area is defined by the infamous East Wind which blows on a regular basis down the valley, drifting snow in the winter and parching the top soil in the summer. 
  • Locals say the wind starts at the top of Uncompahgre Peak (14,000 ft.) and blows, with a blinding force, to the eastern edge of the city of Montrose. 
  • During the summer of 1906, Albert began making plans to send for his family. He sketched pictures of the different denominations of U.S. currency and sent them to Matilda as an aid for her trip.

  • With arrangements in place, the Bellgardt family sailed from Antwerp, Belgium to New York City that fall aboard the White Star Line Steamship. 

    • Steam Ship Sounds. 
  • After five days across the rough waters of the Atlantic, young Albert Jr. was the first passenger to see the distant shoreline of America. Matilda, made the trip the trip with her four children, and the 5th one on the way. She was 7 months pregnant at the time of their voyage. 

  • (Sidenote: My grandfather, August, (age 5 at the time) recalled the large wooden barrels aboard ship filled with snacks of pickled herring to help passengers avoid severe seasickness).

    • Ok hold on – did you catch that… This mom, Matilda Belgardt, has been solo parenting for 6 months, then sets off with her 4 kids, 5 really… and gets on a White Star Lines Steam Ship (by-the-way the same shipping line that would launch the infamous Titanic about 5 years later) and sails across the Atlantic ocean. I kinda thought flying with one young kid was hard, jeesh. 
  • When Matilda and her children reached New York City, they traveled by train to Denver and then to Salida, where they boarded the narrow gauge train to Lujane. The winding  track led over the Continental Divide, climbing steep inclines and following the rugged canyons of the Western Slope. 

  • The cross-country trip had been especially difficult since the family didn’t speak a word of English. However, the Bellgardts found a treat upon their arrival in October 1906 — a box of fresh prunes.

    • Ok ya know how when you see a parent flying with a little kid today, they’re festooned with entertainment, toys, iPads, stuffys, snack packs, wipes, and earplugs for nearby passengers… and some of us parents… look a little stressed out.
    • Imagine this mom, traveling with 4 kids, 7 months pregnant, for like 10 days… I don’t know about you, but a box of fresh prunes wouldn’t have done it for me. I would have needed a pretty Stiff Drink.  
  • I can imagine my great-grandmother stepping off the train at Lujane, and surveying the landscape for the first time. With a lump in her throat, thoughts of family and friends, thousands of miles away, no doubt rushed into her mind —the lush green countryside and well-established towns of her homeland, now only a distant memory. Surrounding her, in all directions, were sparsely-vegetated adobe hillsides, grayish-brown in color, miles of sagebrush, saltbush and assorted small cacti in an open clearing dotted with small, tar paper shacks, the family’s new home, and, of course the East Wind.
• Okay – that gives us a picture of who would build this thing.  We’ll get back to the McCarrick’s and Bellgardts at the end of the episode.

• Construction Begins

  • Back to the project. We’ve just broken ground and  For a few months in the Spring of 1905 – things were looking up. Both crews were making progress from the east and the west. The East portal road was working beautifully getting supplies down to the River Portal crews.

    • Imagine if they had proceeded with the original site and had been moving everything down there by cable car! Jeesh…)
  • They were working three shifts ‘round the clock. 7am crew, 3pm crew, and 11pm crew, and things were proceeding without any major incidents. 

• Taylor-Moore Folds

  • A new supervising engineer had been assigned to the project above McConnell. John H. Quinton, a Civil Engineer from Ireland, that had deep experience in BIG railroad, bridge, and tunnels all over the west, and especially in California. He was basically McConnell’s supervisor, dealing with reporting to DC and handling major contract issues. Quinton was 55 at the time, while Ira McConnell was 32.
  • The first signs of trouble for the project arose 5 months into constcution, in May of 1905.
  • According to a letter John Quinton sent to the Chief Engineer of the US Reclamation Service – on May 9th, Taylor, of Taylor-Moore, came to him in the newly constructed project office in Montrose, and quote, “was evidently very much perturbed about something. After talking with him for some time I discovered that his money matters were not in a satisfactory state, and he seemed so depressed that I became a little anxious about the affairs at the tunnel. Accordingly, I promised to go down there with him, and did so. He has been doing very good work in the last month at both ends of the tunnel, but it appears that his financial matters are in a very bad snarl.”
  • The letter continues to outline the problems. Taylor had taken out huge loans for equipment like boilers, pumps, generators, and air compressors, and was apparently WAY behind on his payments. His creditors, banks in Montrose and Denver, and the equipment suppliers themselves…  were coming after him.

• Taylor, had walked into the project office that day – to face the music. John Quinton went to some lengths to sort out the matter and see if he could help Taylor, but as he worked with those owed the most money, (an equipment supplier named Leyner Engineering Company. Quinton and accountants from Leynor Engineering poured over the books, and… it became clear… Taylor-Moore was beyond helping. Their suppliers had had it with these guys. They didn’t want Taylor to have any part of the project, as he “has made a very poor hand of it so far.”

• Interestingly Quinton and McConnell – acted quickly to secure the necessary equipment from Taylor Moore, before the creditors seized it. This was their collateral really.  And had they seized it, it would have brought the whole project to a halt…
• And so just 4 days after Quinton’s letter back east – it was done. Taylor-Moore was was out. They waived a 10 day grace period they were allowed in their contract, and McConnell, Quinton, and the US Reclamation Service were now the de facto contractor proceeding under what they called “force account” until they received further direction from DC. 
• And while there were certainly some ticked-off creditors, McConnel and Quinton had taken possession of the critical equipment, preserving the project’s progress, and the digging continued – three shifts a day, ‘round the clock. Taylor Moore’s organization was not changed, and the same men and foremen continued just as they had the day before. Quinton reported as much back to DC, in evening telegram to the Chief Engineer of the Reclamation service on May 27th 1905.
• There was much debate about how best to proceed. Maybe sub-contract with Leyner Engineering (they had their act together), re-bid it and find a new contractor, or maybe have the Reclamation Service take-over directly?

• And while McConnell and Quinton were sorting through a quagmire of defaulted contracts, angry debtors and their bondsmen. The Gunnison Tunnel project hopped out of the frying pan, directly into the fire. 

  • PAUSE

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• The Cave-In

  • It’s 10am on  Tuesday May 30th – just three days after Taylor Moore is off the job. The West portal morning shift have been in the tunnel replacing temporary timbers about 340’ feet in from the entrance. They’re working  in section of Adobe soil that McConnell had ordered be to enlarged  the full size of the tunnel with permanent timbers installed. And Just then… a guy named Smithley sees a little trickle of sand  in between two timbers. He called instantly to the boys 

  •  “GET OUT!!!” but before they could scarcely move… 

    • CAVE IN SOUNDS
  • They were caught in an avalanche of crushed timbers, mud and debris.
  • 10 men working  on the timber crew are buried, almost instantly. The WOOOSH of air displaced by the falling dirt blew a guy sitting on top of a tram cart off the cart, and derailed the cart. This event was closer to an explosion… than a slow slumping of material.
  • On that day the West heading of the tunnel was 672’ from the west portal, and this cave-in occurred almost exactly in the middle of the tunnel, as it was at the time.
  • There had been 19 men working at the “face” of the tunnel who were completely unharmed, but trapped. Hearing the cave-in those guys ran back toward the cave-in to figure out what the heck had just happened. 
  • Suddenly the contractual worries for Quinton, and McConnell vaporized – and with confirmation that there were workers trapped, but alive… they sprang into action.
  • They had run a steel pipe along the side of the tunnel through which fresh outside air was being pumped for the crew at the working face of the tunnel. Thankfully this pipe was not crushed by the cave-in, and ventilation continued to flow. The pipe was a life-saver in more ways than one. In addition to supplying breathing air, the trapped workers were able to bang on it to let those on the outside– know that they were alive!! You could imagine that the guy who’d been blown off his trolly cart, might not be so sure that there was anyone alive behind him.

  • Now with the knowledge that there were survivors, men,… their friends, their families… a clock began ticking in all of their hearts. The race was on to save these men.  

    • Clock ticking begins……

• • Check out this an many more photos of records of the cave in here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8HuLsqBCyyLpQdFdA

  • Rescue missions were launched from two sides. No one knew how much of the tunnel was buried. They knew they had made about 670 feet of progress thus far, and that the cave-in started about half way in. But…  had all of the tunnel beyond that half-way mark collapsed? No one knew. All they knew is that there were surviors banging on a pipe, and the most likely location of any survivors was at the working face, where the tunnel digging was occurring, as far from the cave-in as possible. So the first rescue effort was to dig a shaft from above the tunnel straight down,  close to where they knew the face of the tunnel was. Second – and much more precarious – they begin pulling the cave-in material (a nasty conglomeration of broken timbers, mud and debris) out of the tunnel from the side of the tunnel that remained open. I say precarious, because the ground above was clearly unstable, and it was anyone’s guess if when they pulled on a broken timber out, it would unleash another torrent of debris.

    • I’m getting the details on this accident directly from a report that McConnell himself wrote on the incident.
  • A call was made --  on the new telephone --  and Work at the East portal, down in the Black canyon, was halted, so those crews could come over to help with the rescue.
  • McConnell reports, “No time was lost in starting it and the men worked as never before in throwing out the dirt with pick and shovel. They changed every three minutes and the shaft seemingly went down with lighting rapidity. At 10:30 the next morning, just 24 hours after the accident occurred an opening was made to the entombed men.”
  • One factor adding to everyone’s urgency was the risk of the survivors drowning… everyone knew there was groundwater flowing into the tunnel. Was that water filling the tunnel up? 
  • Picture tons of guys (maybe near one hundred) standing around a small hole – rotating through in three minute increments – digging for the lives of their companions – they were going full “hero mode”. In fact McConnell reports that they eventually got close enough that they could hear the trapped workers, and they reported to SLOW DOWN – the crew from above needed to be more gentle to avoid collapsing more of the tunnel down in on these guys.
  • The shaft was completed at 11am on May 31st, just 25 hours after the cave-in.  It was about 50’ deep, and they placed a ladder down into the tunnel. The foreman of the crew, Mr. Grasser, was the first to emerge as he was the weakest of the crew, but for good reason. He had been buried under 9 feet of debris for 9 hours before he got out into the open with the others. His story is incredible:
  • The tunnel had a small drainage channel dug on one side in the floor, a ditch, if you will, for the water infiltrating the tunnel to flow out. Well Mr. Grasser was lucky to be pinned down near this drainage channel, and over the course of 9 hours, he, like a mole, dug his way toward his companions in the tunnel.
  • The 19 trapped workers, hear Grasser and another man trapped in the debris and quickly begin building a dam in the tunnel. Trying to slow the flow of water where their companions were trapped.

  • And remember “Smithley” 

    •  
  • Yea, that guy, who first saw the sprinkle of falling sand? He followed a similar path to “the Mole” Grasser.

  • McConnell reports, “Fortune smiled upon Smithley in like manner. When he recovered his senses after the first crash, he found he was holding the hand of someone, which he is sure was that of Shuler, for he was standing near to him. The dirt and mud were pretty tight about him, but he felt all right otherwise. He attempted to remove the dirt from his partner, following his arm up toward his face, but this was impossible, so he held his hand for what he believes was two hours, when the hand dropped limply and soon became cold.      It was then that he supposes the poor fellow died. Smithley began trying to dig himself out and finally worked into the trough which had saved Grasser. By this time more mud and water had accumulated in the boxing and it was with the greatest difficulty that he could find room to move himself. He would stick his face down in the water and push ahead as long as he could hold his breath then raise his face up long enough to breath. This performance was repeated until he got within about six feet of safety. He was then exhausted and could get no further. He called for assistance and the entombed men came to the rescue. They pushed in a long bar of steel to him, which he grasped and they pulled him out.

    • Phew… talk about perseverance. I just have to keep reading this report from McConnell to you.  
  • “The imprisoned men were working all the while, some constructing a dam across the bottom of the tunnel to hold the water, and others shoveling away debris. They kept in good spirit, believing that succor would reach them before perishing. (succor is an old word for help) When reached they were standing in water up to their knees. As soon as they got to the surface, they all started to the portal entry, saying that they were going to aid in rescuing their companions…. Such bravery and fortitude are seldom witnessed. They were finally induced to obtain food, dry clothing and rest, as there were plenty men available for the work.”
  • The situation on the west (or portal side) of the cave-in was unfolding at a much slower, frustrating pace, “on account of the badly tangled timbers and the frequent protests of the men [trapped there] that the work we were doing was shaking earth down upon them and threatening to crush or smother them.”
  • The rescuers could plainly hear these guys but extracting them was a deadly game of pick-up-sticks. Here’s an account reported in Engineering News (and industry Journal) after the incident. 

“Every man that could find a spot to work was in the tunnel shoveling debris into the cars, Little headway was made here as the dirt came in as fast as [it was] taken out. It was fully a day before the ground could be held in place. While working there it was found that some were still alive under the debris. For their calls could be heard distinctly. Every energy was put forth. By Wednesday  morning [about 24 hours in] they had gotten far enough to converse with these men, who were found to be Fred Groff and Ben Taylor. They were pinned tightly, but were experiencing no pain other than the fatigue and distress of lying in one position. Every effort to release them proved futile, as the removal of a single timber might start another slide and certainly kill them. These men believed they could hold out and told the workers to take their time. Another day passed and still they could not be released. By THURSDAY morning [48 hours in now] the men were very weak, but nourishment was passed in to them through openings between timbers. At one o’clock in the afternoon the timbers had been braced sufficiently to remove those which held Taylor and he was pulled out. He simply complained of stiffness and rheumatism and was exceedingly jovial all the time. [who wouldn’t’ be] Three hours later Groff was extricated by placing straps around his ankle and six men pulling him through an aperture which seemed scarcely large enough to accommodate his limbs. He was the weaker of the two but stood the ordeal bravely. “

…. Such bravery and fortitude are seldom witnessed. 

(I moved McConnell’s quote to the end here for dramatic effect.)

• Fred Groff and Ben Taylor were removed on the afternoon of June 1st. They had been trapped among the timbers for more than 50 hours10. McConnel wrote letter reporting to superiors just after these two men were removed that they  had removed “hundreds of carloads of dirt” and the end was still nowhere in sight.

  • Trumpet of academic festival orchestra 
• Of the 29 men trapped by the cave-in. The 19 working at the Tunnel Face had simply been trapped,  Grasser and Smithley on that side had tunneled with their fingernails to safety, and Groff and Taylor were extracted via life-&-death pick-up-sticks and human tug-o-war on the west side.
• The crews continued removing the dirt and eventually extracted the bodies of 6 more tunnel workers. Their names were: Ackerman, Woodruff, Steele, Schuler, Hornhart, and Cassidy. Several of these are still family names in the Uncompahgre Valley today. 
• As McConnell wrote, “This is the saddest catastrophe that has ever occurred in Montrose County.Hundreds of folks from the valley came to the site to offer assistance.”  
• All told, considering the technology & equipment available at the time, and the number of workers trapped  – the fact that they got 23 men out alive was pretty miraculous.

• Why a cave-in?

  • So what happened? How did a federally supervised project of this scale experience such a terrible accident? In hindsight – the signs are kinda painfully clear.
  • First, the soils in this area are SUPER unstable. The mesa immediately to the South is constantly eroding and sloughing downward, still today. In fact, the Denver & Rio Grand railroad eventually abandon that stretch of rail, in part because they were struggling with the ground eroding out from under their train tracks so often. 
  • And just in case the tunnel crew were not yet enough on edge… there was actually A SECOND CAVE-IN! just 30 hours after the first cave-in while Groff and Taylor were still being extracted. Talk about unnerving. This time, it was much smaller, a mud flow of about 50 cubic yards fell in, and Cedar Creek ended up running into the tunnel.

  • Remember back in our last Episode  when I was discussing the Cimarron Ditch and said…  said the Cimarron Ditch Water running in Cedar Creek toward Montrose would become “gravely important” to our story? 

    • Re-play scary sound. 
  • Welp, this is it.  Diagrams and reports from McConnell and others show that they had recently changed the path Cedar Creek above the tunnel in this area. Remember it’s late May. Spring Run-off is really ramping up, and Cedar Creek, for the last three years has been carrying more water than it ever had, thanks to the diversion from the recently completed Cimarron Ditch just a few miles up-stream at Cerro Summit. All of McConnel’s and other’s reports dismiss this second cave-in as inconsequential. It only filled the tunnel with 4 feet of mud in the area.

  • They were playing with fire and I don’t think they even knew it. Spring run-off and new water diversion had, for the last two months, been adding large volumes of water to very unstable soils right on top of the tunnel. You don’t have to be a geotechnical engineer to know that soil becomes less stable when it’s wet. This area of the tunnel eventually had to be lined with concrete. And don’t trust me on this. 

    • My name is Mallory McAdams, I’m a civil engineer technically, hoping to become a geotechnical engineer. Currently living in Oregon, but spend most of my life growing up in Colorado. I did my bachelors and my masters through the Colorado School of Mines. 
    • Full interview with Mallory McAdams available here 

  • When I was researching for this project I found an incredible paper on the civil engineering of the tunnel. The paper was published in 2013 in THE American Society of Civil Engineers, Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, and was SUPer helpful to me. 

    • Judith Wang, my co author on the paper. She was my soil mechanics professor. She  this great idea for this, this paper?
    • And so she's like, yeah, you want to spend a summer just, like, totally researching this? And so she's like, “yeah, you want to spend a summer just, like, totally researching this?” And I was like, “Absolutely. That sounds awesome.” 

  • Mallory McAdams and Judith Wang both write:

    • Cedar Creek, just south of the as-built Gunnison Tunnel line, had been diverted in the restructuring of the natural water streams for the associated canal systems 2 weeks prior to the cave-in to a location nearer to the specific location of the cave-in. Although this fact is not very well documented in the reports from that time, [now here comes the wonky geotechnical speak] it is possible that the alteration of hydrogeological conditions very near the cohesionless soils around the tunnel line may have altered the effective stress states and thus the shear strength of the surrounding soil materials.
  • This cave in happened because there was a lot of water on-top of the tunnel. Making an area of already unstable soils, much less stable than anyone was anticipating, and that water was there from natural Spring run-off AND additional water recently diverted from the Cimarron Ditch.

  • I asked Mallory, if this was a reasonable conclusion, and she said,

    • Oh yea… 100% that’s what happened. 

• Work Resumes

  • The team of engineers and workers paid their respects to the fallen, go back to work, many of them walking every day through the section of tunnel that had collapsed an where there friends had died. 
  • As McConnell took over the day-to-day logistics of construction he found that Taylor-Moore had been skimping quite a lot, and quickly made request for more robust equipment, especially electric generators, at both portals. To this point the workers had been working by candle light – no kidding - they’d pound a little candle holder into the rock stick their candle in it and start working.
  • The US Reclamation Service did re-bid the project that Fall in September of 1905, They received three bids ranging from $1.54M to $2.12M, and the US Reclamation Service 4th Annual Report says “All bids were rejected, and orders were given to complete the work under Government supervision.”

  • McConnel and team got in there and really improved things. 

    • Now, Taylor Moore had sunk a shaft from the surface down to the tunnel line, about 5,000 feet from the west portal. This shaft was 10’x5’ and had a gantry hoist to lower equipment and workers down into the tunnel. Taylor Moore had one crew proceeding east from this shaft. When the Reclamation service took over, they put a second crew down this shaft and began advancing another face back West toward the West portal.

    • The Tunnel was now advancing on four Headings:

      • Heading # 1 from the Black Canyon, Boat Landing location headed West. 
      • Heading #2 from the shaft proceeding East, toward the canyon. 
      • Heading #3 from the shaft proceeding West, toward the Valley, and
      • Heading #4, the West portal proceeding (albiet quite problematically) eastward from the outlet of the tunnel.
    • By the end of the year a town of nearly 800 people was built up and  called Lujane to support the 350 workers based there, and it had a post office. 
    • On the River portal  a workforce of 150 men had been established with similar amenities, also including a post office.

• Re-connection with the Belgardt’s

  • So it was to these much improved conditions that my family arrived. The McCarricks continued to live on their homestead (on which they later received a Homestead Patent for 120 acres). They cleared the land to plant crops, such as grain and alfalfa, and an apple orchard. They also raised turkeys and chickens.
  • In addition to farming, James worked as a caretaker at the west portal of the tunnel. His (oldest?) 16-year-old son, Edward, was a member of one of the last two crews to meet and "hole through" the tunnel on July 6, 1909. 
  • BRODY   (You’ll hear about in the next episode.
  • He James McCarrick passed away in 1932 at the age of 76; Laura lived to the age of 93.
  • Ten children were born to the couple.

• On the Bellgardt side, during the winter of 1909-1910, Albert worked with finishing crews at the east portal site. The, where men scaled huge icicles draped across the wooden and concrete frame structures, trying to stay warm in the bitter cold of the canyon depths. 
• Albert’s dream of homesteading and farming land came true about this time; the family constructed a small shack above Lujane on upper Bostwick Par.k. The family built a permanent home in 1917, and raised  exceptional crops of potatoes, alfalfa and grains.

• In 1949, services were held in Montrose commemorating the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Gunnison Tunnel. Albert Bellgardt Sr. was recognized for having worked the longest on the tunnel construction.

• Albert and Matilda both lived into their 90’s and were the parents of nine children. 

• Fourth and fifth generations, including myself, still own and operate the land homesteaded by Albert and Matilda. In 2010 we were awarded Centennial Farm and Ranch Status from the state of Colorado. We’re one of the very few Ranches in Montrose County receiving that designation. Noting that we have been under the same family ownership and continuous operation for over a century. 
• We strive to carry on the legacy set by my great grandparents who dared to dream an incredible dream.

• And, yes, the East Wind still blows.

=======================END=====================
Special thanks in this second episode goes of course to Elaine Hale Jones. She’s written several books on history of the Montrose, the Black Canyon, and most recently a book of ghost stories from around the valley. Elaine, thanks so much for sharing you family’s story here.

And of course Mallory McAdams, and Judith Wang. Mallory spent a long time geeking out with me about the engineering of the tunnel, and the amazing civil engineering that went into it. Thanks Mallory

Also, Richard Elsom is an Archivist at the National Archives in Denver. I told him what I was up to, and he pulled boxes and boxes of incredibly valuable records from the Reclamation Service for me, and helped me understand how to properly cite them. Thanks Richard.

And Finally my buddy Tim Price, voice acting here as Ira McConnell. Thanks Tim. That was a nice addition.

Okay – that was episode 2. In episode 3 I cover more of the actual construction of the tunnel, and what it was actually like for these guys, as well as uncover what I think was the cause for the tunnel’s deadliest accident. We’ll se ya in the next episode.

To view additional resources and information, click HERE.