Tunnels at Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN.
Dan Boehlke
I wish I had thought of creating this group. Thanks, it made my day.
At Gustavus we have only two tunnels for people. They are above ground and
have windows, so they don't count. They go between the Library, Student
Union and Dining facilities. The other tunnels are more interesting.
All but two of the major campus building are connected by steam tunnels. I
have explored the whole system as part of job as network manager. There is
even a tunnel that goes to a man hole in the middle of a grassy knoll where
a building used to stand. And another that inexplicably terminates in a
large room now under a campus road.
There are about five miles of tunnel total under the Gustavus campus.
There are parts of nearly forgotten GAC history in the tunnels. Things
like directions on the wall that state the name of a building used to have,
before the donation. The tunnel that ends in the middle of knoll used to
connect the original field house and water tower. The room under the road
where trucks park above and pumps in the room could pump fuel oil to the
boiler house.
The standard tunnel at GAC consists of cement floor, two brick wall about
six feet apart, and a ceiling six feet high. A rack with steam pipes takes
up two feet on one side. Armored cable TV cables are clamped to the
ceiling. The side opposite the steam pipes have electrical, phone,
building control and data cables. The ultimate goal of a tunnel at GAC is
to get its steam pipes to the boiler house.
This last summer Steve Kraft and I were measuring the tunnels for a campus
network expansion proposal. For the first time we walked all the tunnels.
My favorite part was as we approached a popular residence hall, Wahlstrom.
The tunnel from Confer and Vickner buildings to Wahlstrom has to drop 40
feet down a hill side and dip under a road. On the way Wahlstrom, the
tunnel makes a stop at Pittman hall which sits a bit higher than the road
the tunnel must pass under. Walking through this tunnel causes a slight
loss of up and down. Imagine walking arround the outside of the ring of a
rotating space station like in 2001. This tunnel does about the best it
can duplication the feeling of a space station or gerbil wheel without
going to orbit. Most tunnels at GAC just end in a door or hatch into a
mechanical room. Wahlstrom was a suprise. Built in the early 1940s by the
millitary as a dorm for troups being transported to and from the uppper
midwest, and later given to the college it has a different construction and
layout than other college dorms. Wahlstrom is built on a hillside and sits
on stilts pounded into the bedrock. Upstairs and inside it decor is best
described as 1930's or 40's catholic hospital. Then tunnel comes to an end
at a rusted metal gate, and the dirt on the floor and silt on the gate
suggests that there has been water here in the past. Pulling the gate open
caused it to break off its rusted hinges. On the other side of the gate
was a wall, thef the building, and about knee hight was the opening to a
crawl space. The dirt in the crawl space was fine on bone dry. A crude
trench had been scrapped out from the tunnel entrance to a three foot door
at the base of a stair well. A large brick wall seems to block progress,
however the crawl space and trenches go deeper under it. My imagination
told me that I felt heat and smelled sulfer from the deeper of the tunnels,
as I passed beyond the where I could crawl, I expected to see inhuman
cloven prints in the bone dry dust floor.
Some days I wouldn't mind having an office in the forgotten room under the
road. I am looking forward to the tunnel stories of others.
--
Dan Boehlke Internet: d...@gac.edu
Academic Computing BITNET: d...@gacvax1.bitnet
Gustavus Adolphus College
St. Peter, MN 56082 USA Phone: (507)933-7596
Steven Kraft
More thoughts on Gustavus tunnels.... Hmm, where to start...
There is a tunnel intersection near the heating plant with so many steam
pipes that it is virtually impossible to get through, although it might be
fun to try! And where the steam pipes enter the Chapel there is almost
no way for a normal human to squeeze between the numerous horizontal pipes.
Other than that we (that is, Dan and I) can go almost anywhere on campus
via the tunnels. One very old dorm (Johnson) and the athletic center are
not connected to the tunnel system though.
>The standard tunnel at GAC consists of cement floor, two brick wall about
>six feet apart, and a ceiling six feet high.
Ceiling height is an interesting subject: It is not necessarily a constant.
The light bulbs, if not already broken off, are prime targets for one's head.
So are conduits, etc. This is why hard hats are a Good Thing(tm).
Light switches are not always in the best locations, but usually one can
walk through without having to backtrack too often to turn off lights after
passing through a given area. Flashlights are definitely Good Things(tm)
also.
>This last summer Steve Kraft and I were measuring the tunnels for a campus
>network expansion proposal. For the first time we walked all the tunnels.
A fun job, indeed.
>My favorite part was as we approached a popular residence hall, Wahlstrom.
[deleted]
>however the crawl space and trenches go deeper under it. My imagination
>told me that I felt heat and smelled sulfer from the deeper of the tunnels,
>as I passed beyond the where I could crawl, I expected to see inhuman
>cloven prints in the bone dry dust floor.
And I learned all this after living in that dorm for 2 years!
>Some days I wouldn't mind having an office in the forgotten room under the
>road.
I wouldn't mind an office in the tunnel under Confer Hall, a relatively new
academic building. Nice open space, but not as secluded as the forgotten
room under the road with the oil pumps...
Steve Kraft
--
Steven Kraft kr...@gac.edu Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter MN
CS major Acad. Comp. Dept. Assistant Unix/Linux/NeXT Consultant
Gustavus Christian Community President GYO Publicity Coordinator
Ask me about Linux, the freely available unix for the Intel 386/486.