History

UO's Cramped Steam Tunnels No Place to Party

We're hot. Really hot.

It might be raining on Earth, sprinkling raindrops on the Mill Race and making Franklin Boulevard a slippery, slick sheen, but down here, we're sweating.

That's because it's at least 90 degrees underneath the University of Oregon campus, in a place known as the "steam tunnels," where temperatures hover around 100 degrees.

This is the UO's power grid, where steam pipes both large and small mix with electrical and high-voltage lines and other pipes that carry compressed air and [chilled water].

"There's probably 100 different points to get in (to the tunnels)," says Paul Bruch, a project specialist for the UO's Facilities Service Office near the Mill Race. "But any kind of myth you've heard about students getting caught in tunnels just isn't possible."

Not even 50 years ago?

"I wasn't here 50 years ago," Bruch says with a laugh. "I can't speak to that."

No, students aren't likely to sneak into the UO's steam-tunnel system anymore. Not with all the security and locks these days. And a trip through the cramped, claustrophobic tunnels would make any sane person wonder why they'd want to.

"As you can tell, this is not somewhere you would want to come if you were looking for a good time," Bruch says during a trip from the UO's central power station on Franklin Boulevard, down underneath the Mill Race, underneath Franklin, and through nooks and crannies that anyone more than 6 feet tall would definitely not want to venture.

The experience reminds one of the trip taken by the survivors of "The Poseidon Adventure," the 1972 film about a cruise ship overturned by a tidal wave whose 2006 remake is in theaters now. Luckily, there's no spot along our venture where we've got to swim underwater and hold our breath for more than a minute if we want to make it out.
Just a lot of stooping and perspiring and squeezing of bodies.

"I'm beginning to feel like Groucho Marx," says UO spokeswoman Pauline Austin, who came along out of curiosity, describing the bent-over gait she and everyone else has assumed as we make our way through a waterlogged corridor under the Mill Race. Our clothes are soaked with sweat, and our hard-hat-covered heads occasionally bonk the pipes above us.

The network of tunnels under the UO is 2.5 miles long. The first tunnels were built in the 1940s to replace telephone poles with underground phone lines, former UO archivist Keith Richard says. The tunnels were extended over the years, and in the '40s and '50s students were said to have sneaked down into them to drink, spray graffiti or just explore, he says. But concerns during the Vietnam-protest years of the 1960s caused the university to secure all access points for fear someone might plant a bomb in a tunnel, Richard says.

Most universities and colleges have steam tunnels beneath them, and it's long been a college pastime
to explore them. In fact, go to the Internet and do a search on "university steam tunnels" and you'll find all sorts of fascinating information.

"No longer were we on campus - we'd been transported into another world," writes a University of Texas student on a Web site called betterthanyourboyfriend.com/the-secret-tunnels-under-ut. Included are eerie photographs the student and others took of the school's underground tunnels after sneaking down a manhole in the middle of the night.

"The steam pipes would make noises which sent our hearts jumping ... or the pipes would creak and we'd become terrified," the student writes.

Local legend has it that a student snuck into the UO steam tunnels in the 1960s and was never seen again.

"That's what it is," Richard says. "An urban legend. Nobody's ever seen that, there's no skeletons down there."

As Bruch and Josh Ruddick, a utilities engineer with the Facilities Service Office, lead us under Franklin Boulevard, we come to a narrow staircase that leads up about 10 feet. Bruch tells us "there's gonna be a little crawling here." He's not kidding.

In order to head west under the south side of Franklin, we've got to squeeze ourselves over a large steam pipe and under more pipes, through a space that would be the last space most UO football linemen would ever try to fit through.

About 25 feet later, it's time to do the "limbo" under another large pipe that's blocking our route and sits a couple of feet off the ground. "Is there an alternative?" asks the 64-year-old Austin, who has decided she wants a photographer to take her picture "to prove to my grandchildren that I actually did this."

Alas, there is no other way. Our feet are muddied, our pants are dirtied and our faces look like coal miners'.

The only alternative is to get low and keep on moving. Back to daylight, fresh air and sweet, higher ground.

Baker, Mark. "UO's Cramped Steam Tunnels No Place to Party". Register-Guard. May 28, 2006. Pg. G2.

Updated by PLB on 06/02/06
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