Tunnels Under the Capital - Harrison Gray Dyer - Part One

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Episode Transcript

(00:04):
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Onyx Coffee Lab today. Do youever think about what is below your feet?

(01:34):
I mean not just the sidewalk,but deeper. If we could somehow
peel the layers of the earth backone at a time, what do you
think you would find? Concrete atfirst, probably soil thereafter, maybe some
electrical lines, some plumbing, maybea natural spring. It's difficult to say

(01:57):
unless you've gotten the land surveyed.Sometimes I find myself wondering about it.
At any given time, am Istanding above a giant fossil or stash of
gold coins, or maybe a topsecret network of tunnels. My name is
Josh and this is obscure history.It was a summer day, just like

(02:45):
any other in Washington, d C. The September sun cast its warm glow
over the city, illuminating the windowsof tall buildings and car windshields. Birds
sang their celebratory songs, Traffic filledthe air with its constant low hum,
and children played in the streets,alleyways, and parks. It was a

(03:08):
perfectly ordinary day, at least itstarted out that way. On this ordinary
day, a truck driver delivering aload of heavy cargo to a hotel building
slowly snaked his way through the streetsof Washington, d C. Shrill horns
ascended above the din of traffic,and even shriller voices called down curses upon

(03:32):
slow and careless drivers, red lights, green lights, pedestrians hurriedly walking to
their meetings. Shoppers stopped to admirestorefronts and window displays. That is until
this ordinary truck driver on this ordinaryday discovered something truly remarkable. As he

(03:58):
pulled up to the curb, hefelt the earth give way beneath his wheels.
Perhaps it felt like a flat tireat first, but the driver could
never have expected what he found.When he exited the vehicle. His tire
had sunken into a large hole inthe ground, but the cavity was much
larger than a pothole. Underneath thewheels of his truck, the delivery driver

(04:21):
saw a man sized tunnel. Thediscovery was shocking, but the closer he
looked, the more startled he became. The driver had not discovered simple earthen
tunnels that may have housed plumbing orelectrical lines. These tunnels had brick walls

(04:41):
and a brick ceiling. They alsohad electrical lighting. Somebody had made these
tunnels meticulously, purposefully, diligently,and their motives were anyone's gas. Immediately,

(05:15):
the story spread like ripples in apond, at first grabbing the attention
of the locals and then the attentionof the journalists. After a few days,
the first solid report about the tunnelscame out and did explored every possibility.
Mysterious DuPont Circle tunnel found blocked upduring night, residents stirred by subterranean

(05:39):
passages, possibly used by spies,bootleggers, robbers, and possibly not hist
mystery tons of it, including Germannewspapers printed in a language which is unmistakably
German, subterranean corridors that lead nowhere, rusty hinges, rotten wood, tales

(06:00):
of mysterious pools of water help murderpolice. When a heavily loaded truck delivering
supplies to the Pelham Courts apartments PStreet near twenty first crushed through several feet
of earth a few days ago andleft exposed the dark corridors of an underground
chamber, one of Washington's favorite mysterieswas revived, and today the whole city

(06:23):
was seeking to unravel the problem.It is no new problem. Several years
ago, the same underground passageways werediscovered when the Pelham Court's apartment was under
construction, and the mystery was justas great then as it is today,
if not greater. But that wasten years ago. This is today.

(06:44):
The plot became considerably thicker today followingreports that the cave cavern underground chamber murderers,
den, spies, hang out,bootleggers, rendezvous, or whatever suits
your fancy had been rediscovered yesterday.A brave little band of photographers and newspaperman
journeyed there today immediately. As saidbefore, the plot began to thicken last

(07:05):
night in the silly hours of theenshrouding darkness. Unidentified hands with a dark
motive and superhuman strength worked feverishly inthe eerie caverns, and the entrance to
the most creepy of all the myriadof tunnels was completely filled in with fresh
earth. When the janitor of anearby apartment house saw just how thick the

(07:27):
plot was, his hair promptly lostits natural curl, and he left the
dark labyrinth so precipitously that he nearlydropped a ten foot crowbar and the person
of a fleeing photographer, who triedvainly to beat him to the entrance.
He and the real estate operator whoowns the property above the caves admitted they
were non plussed. Prior to thediscovery this week, the tunnel had been

(07:50):
known to a few of the olderresidents of the neighborhood, and especially to
those who were children ten to fifteenyears ago. It was thought, however,
that the underground labyrinth had been sealedforever many years back. When the
truck so unceremoniously opened it up again, though, and let loose a veritable
whirlwind of ghost stories and thrilling romancesthrough the neighborhood. An exploring party penetrated

(08:13):
its passages for possibly a city block. Having failed to take along sufficient light
and firearms for use in the eventof an unexpected encounter, they returned with
expectation of returning and completing a journeyagain today, accompanied by Bishop Hill of
the Firm of Moore and Hill,owners of the Pelham Court's property in the

(08:35):
rear of which the entrance was made. A group of newspaper men climbed down
into the tunnel this morning for thepurpose of going on through to the amazement
of mister Hill. They found asection where the upper tunnel had dropped into
an unexplored lower passageway, which hadbeen filled in and made temporarily impassable.
Workmen will be sent this afternoon,however, to clear away the fresh earth

(08:58):
and reopen the entrance to the secondtier of tunnels. In the meantime,
everyone in the neighborhood is eyeing eachother with suspicious glances and wondering who crept
stealthily into the aperture last night.Mystery and romance whisper from every brick of
the tunnels. Entering through a smallaperture made by the prying truck, the
explorer suddenly finds himself in an amazingwell kept corridor, perhaps two yards wide

(09:22):
and eight feet high. The flooris plain earth. The sides and arched
roof are of large hard bricks,with an ornamental row or two of expensive
glazed bricks protruding slightly from the wallnear the roof. Following the main passage
back about twenty yards, the expectantexplorer comes to an abrupt end. Fresh

(09:43):
concrete glistens where once was a woodendoor. The rusted hinges still hang from
the brick walls, and bits offast decaying door litter the floor. Turning
back another passage beckons the steady nervedones into the stygian recesses. It too
ends in a concrete wall, butturning at a sharp angle to the left,

(10:05):
is still a third passageway. Thisdescends several yards by means of a
half dozen perfectly modeled brick steps.There once existed a trapped door. Beneath
the door was a long iron ladderthat descended into another tunnel. Across the
trap door, the upper tunnel continuedits uncertain way toward the unknown. What

(10:26):
lies at the bottom of the ironladder no one knows as yet, for
it was there that the mysterious personsfilled up the entrance. Last night.
Following the upper passageway, however,the explorers found themselves emerging from a brick
wall in the back yard of thehome of missus Minnie Ebbele, fifteen ten
twenty first Street. The very subtlenessof the exit or entrance, whichever it

(10:50):
was, in that back yard wasstrange in itself. A person looking at
the wall would never have dreamed itwas anything but what it pretended to be.
It was hollow, however, andafforded a perfect passageway down to the
tunnel via another set of steps.At the foot of these steps, still
another tunnel swung off to the rightand here again mysterious hands had filled up

(11:13):
the entrance, not only with loosedirt, but huge cakes of concrete torn
from the wall. Apparently it swungunder the house at fifteen twelve twenty first
Street, which also is owned bymissus Ebbell. In the yard of the
ladder was found a second exit,blocked by concrete slab that had been built
in place of a door the explorershad found inside the tunnel. For years,

(11:37):
the slab had remained unnoticed under aset of crude wooden steps leading up
to the alley in the back ofthe Pelham Courts. It had been sealed
for years before missus Edel had movedinto the house, and the entrance via
her own back yard had been socleverly concealed that even she did not notice
its existence until six months ago,when contractors discovered it while bill holding a

(12:00):
garage in the back yard. Herimagination fired. Missus Ebbele endeavored to reach
the woman from whom she had boughtthe house, a miss Marguerite Barnes.
Miss Barnes had not told missus Ebbleof the existence of the tunnel, she
said, and every effort to locateMiss Barnes again proved futile calling in real
estate men to view the forbidden passageway. However, missus Ebbele heard several stories

(12:24):
of how it came to exist.There two brothers, the story goes,
once occupied the houses at fifteen tenand fifteen twelve twenty first Street. One
was a bachelor, the other thehusband of a beautiful young woman. Fate,
however, brought the bachelor brother andhis sister in law into a wonderful
love tryst. They are said tohave had the tunnel built so they could

(12:46):
slip into each other's homes without beingdetected by the unsuspecting husband. They died
within a few days of each other. The story goes without ever having betrayed
the romance of their cavern trysting place. But the story does not account for
the fact that the tunnel extends notonly at least a block back into the
old estate there, but has numerousside passageways and at least one more tier

(13:11):
of tunnels under the upper one.It is said, however, that the
tunnel really leads clear down to RockCreek Park, and that the two lovers
used to slip through it to thefern clad banks of Rock Creek. There
is still another story to be toldof the origin of the tunnel. It
strays from the paths of romance anddeals with international intrigues, stealthy foreign spies,

(13:33):
and war. Missus Ebbele said shewas told a German chemist once occupied
a house in the neighborhood during thewar. It is said twoton spies found
ingress into his home through the tunnel. Supporting this theory, too, are
the copies of several German American newspaperspasted on the roof of the tunnel where
it branches off into the lower passagesand back yard. The fact that the

(13:58):
cavern really does run down to RockCreek is vouched for by several young men
of the neighborhood who used the cavernsas bandits den during the days of imaginative
youth. They said once the passagenot only terminated at the edge of Rock
Creek, but that another dropped intoa sewer just below a manhole where the
users of the underground labyrinth might enteror leave in an emergency. The last

(14:22):
of the entrances was believed to havebeen sealed forever, though when Pelham Courts
was constructed. According to Pat O'Brien, veteran Headquarters detective. The tunnel was
built more than fifteen years ago bya wealthy man as a clubhouse and play
room for his son. The man, whose name the detective does not recall,
resided on twenty first Street in thefifteen hundred block. O'Brien remembers that

(14:46):
on several occasions the boys of theneighborhood broke into the tunnel and the owner
had them arrested and taken to juvenilecourt. On one occasion, the case
was settled when O'Brien brought a newlock for a destroyed one on the tents
of the tunnel, as a nephewof the detective was involved in the affair.
Several years ago, when Pelham Court'sApartments was under construction, O'Brien said,

(15:07):
workmen discovered the tunnel and its historywas recounted in the newspapers at the
time. O'Brien says there is absolutelynothing to the reports that German spies and
bootleggers have used the tunnel. Thereare other stories about that mysterious cave too.
When the newspapermen were preparing to gointo it, a woman living in

(15:28):
Pelham Courts sent her made out toplead with them not to enter, saying
that some years ago another man venturedinto the dark recesses and was never seen
afterward. It is said that thereis a well of water nine feet deep
beneath a trap door in one ofthe passages, and he is believed to
have fallen into this and been drowned. No one ever ventured in to look

(15:48):
for him. But other persons whodeclared they remembered the same occurrence, said
they thought it more likely that theununfortunate explorer had toppled off a ledge into
a pit of lie that is saidto have been arranged as a trap.
His body, they said, probablywas completely consumed by the lie, and
for that reason no one ever thoughtit worthwhile to institute a search for him.

(16:12):
These stories, it must be remembered, are all neighborhood gossip, and
some are probably grossly exaggerated. Thedeep concern of the woman for the safety
of the reporters and photographers, however, caused every one of them to step
with the greatest caution on their shortjourney. Still, another explanation was offered
by George W. Linkins, realestate operator who lived in the neighborhood before

(16:36):
and during the Civil War. Thetunnel, in all probability, was built
nearly sixty years ago as a sewerto drain off the water from the lowlands
then lying in that district, saidmister Linkns. It was in the days
where there was a bridge on theConnecticut Avenue just above El Street, when
Rhode Island Avenue was a winding dirtroad running between farmlands, when New Hampshire

(16:59):
Avenue was on the map but notconstructed. In the nearest structures to DuPont
Circle were a brick kill and anda slaughter house. Mister Linkin pointed all
this out on his old map ofthe city, one of the very few
remaining maps of eighteen fifty nine.At that time, Boundary Street, which
ran approximately where Florida Avenue now runs, was low marshy ground with a stream

(17:22):
running through it, with high groundon either side. Running up on the
west of the old Calorama Place tothe east across Connecticut Avenue. This stream
ran into Rock Creek at the famousOld Stone paper Mill built before Washington was
planned. There was another small streamwhich ran into the Boundary Street stream which
had its origin a block just abovewhen it was then called North Pea Street

(17:47):
between West twenty first Street and Westtwenty second Street. Mister Linkins, according
to his recollection, believes that thistunnel just discovered was constructed just after the
Civil War, during the administration ofMayor Bowen, during the time when a
great deal of grating and filling wasgoing on in that section of the city.
It was used to drain off thewater from Boundary Street low Lands to

(18:10):
carry off the brook that ran fromthe Pea Street block, and the public
would continue to panic in the faceof the possibilities. Was it a network
of tunnels used by German spies inan attempt to sabotage the nation's capital.
Where the tunnels used by bootleggers tosmuggle booze into the city and loosen the
lips of politicians. Where the tunnelsa dumping ground for a serial killer or

(18:33):
a team of thugs. The mysteryhung overhead a dense cloud of fear and
anxiety. However, it did notlast long. The public would have an
answer only twenty four hours after thatfirst story. But in many ways it
was just the beginning of the strangestory of the DuPont Circle tunnels. But

(18:56):
before we get into that, weneed to tunnel our way over to some
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(19:18):
connected today. Great tunnel mystery leadsback to little hollyhock bed. Scientists started
digging at wife's request, couldn't stop, And there's the whole story of the
Capital's catacombs. Ah Well, fromgreat oaks, little acorns grow, so
philosophized Harrison G. Dyer, entomologiston staff at the Smithsonian Institute and internationally

(19:42):
known authority on North American mosquitoes,as he emerged this morning from the labyrinth
of DuPont Circle, which he builtyears ago as a pastime, and for
twenty four hours had furnished Washington witha dark and dreadful mystery. It all
started in a bed of hollyhocks standin the dim light of lanterns, surrounded

(20:02):
by the musty caverns he had excavated. Mister Dyer unfolded the story of how
the idea of burrowing out of theuntenemented catacombs under his back yard at fifteen
ten and fifteen twelve twenty first Street, Northwest first took root in his mind
in nineteen o six and eventually resultedin an astounding group of perfectly constructed tunnels

(20:23):
of mystery. Eight years later,mister Dyer had eagerly accepted the invitation to
accompany several newspapermen to the tunnels andonce more wander through the strange passages his
fancy had made into realities as hewandered slowly through them, pointing with almost
childish excitement to the little landmarks hehad left behind, and calling to attention

(20:45):
details that would have easily escaped lessexperienced eyes. He told his story simply,
Missus Dyer wanted a bed of hollyhocksand a little garden for vegetables.
He said, you know, thehollyhock grows best if the earth under it,
for many feet, has been loosened. The roots of the hollyhock penetrate
very deep into the ground. Well. I volunteered to dig the garden when

(21:10):
I was down perhaps six or sevenfeet surrounded by only the damp, brown
walls of old mother earth. Iwas seized with an undeniable fancy to keep
going. So I kept digging anddigging until I had quite a trench.
Then I wanted to keep it,so I gathered up all the old bricks
I could find on the numerous dumpsthat abounded in this neighborhood at the time,
and walled up my trench. Untilthat time, I had not really

(21:33):
thought of making it a cave.But the more I thought of it,
the more my fancy grew. Iguessed my engineering principles were not very sound,
but I see that my walls androof were Anyhow to make my arched
roof, I simply placed boards overthe trench, covered them with earth molded
into an arch, plastered the brickson top, and a few days later

(21:55):
kicked out the boards. Down camethe dirt, but my roof remained intact.
Then I covered the roof with dirtagain, and I had my cave.
I just kept going and going,building here or there as my fancy
struck me. Originally there were fourentrances, over one of which I built
a little house. See that pileof dirt. Mister Dyer pointed to what
seemed to be part of the floorof the tunnel leading to a house.

(22:19):
There are a series of fifteen stepsunder that, leading down to a small
but fairly deep, subterranean lake.I was astonished when I found that lake.
It probably comes from an accumulation ofwater that soaked through from the surface.
I built an iron grating over mylittle cavern lake so that I could
walk over it without danger and lookdown at the water. I'll never forget

(22:41):
the time a nosy policeman came cryingin once my digging had aroused the suspicions
of some of my neighbors, andthe policeman came around to see what it
was all about. That was someyears after I had started, and my
tunnels were nearly finished. Well,sir, the policeman started bravely down those
steps all of a sudden, andI heard a splash, and the next
minute he came flying back, wetto the knees. He had stepped one

(23:04):
step too far and was in nodanger, but he was awfully frightened and
awfully mad. But he had hadenough. He went out after that,
and the next time I had avisitor from the police department. It was
from Detective O'Brien, who lived notfar away. By the time mister Dyer
had reached the intersection where the Germannewspapers had been found cemented to the walls,

(23:26):
tenderly poking at them with his flashlight. The scientists smiled broadly, then
said, Nope, no spies putthem up there. I did it myself,
but I didn't know they were inthe German language. I am of
English descent. My family had livedhere for more than a hundred years,
but we used to get packages fromfriends in Germany many years ago. I

(23:47):
needed some newspapers to spread over aboard on which I was to pour some
of my cement. I just grabbedanything, of course, and I suppose
some were papers that were of theGerman packages and had been wrapped in it.
Look here do you see that onemister Dyer had chipped off one of
the German papers. Underneath was anotherone. Well, that's English, as

(24:07):
you see. I just used anythingI got. At times, mister Dyer
seemed genuinely chagrined when he found partsof the walls he had toiled so hard
and well over wrecked by construction gangsthat knocked them in. He told how
toward the end he had been obligedto buy some of the bricks, and
only smiled graciously when an engineer whoaccompanied the party through the tunnel highly complimented

(24:30):
mister Dyer on his work. It'sperfect, said the engineer. Well,
I never was taught to engineering orhow to lay bricks, smiled the naturalist.
I've spent my life chasing bugs.And thus ended the mystery of the
catacombs of aristocratic DuPont Circle, perhapsten or fifteen years. Hence, when
the excitement of this great mystery hasdied down, someone else will back a

(24:52):
truck or an airplane into another sectionof the tunnel. If they do,
it is not all that likely thatanother army of reporters will go racing to
the spot to have their imaginative headsfilled with weird rumors and neighborhood ghost yarns,
and the nation's capital will probably enjoythis old thrill all over again.

(25:14):
And so just as quickly as themystery appeared, it was solved, or
so it would seem. Who wasHarrison Gray Dyer exactly, and what was
the real reason he built those elaboratetunnels. It may not surprise you,
but the entomologist who built elaborate tunnelsin his spare time lived a highly eccentric

(25:37):
life. But that's a story fornext week. Thank you so much for
listening, everybody. I sincerely appreciateall of you. If you want to
get in touch, there are afew ways to do it. You can
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(25:57):
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(26:41):
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(27:02):
for listening. It is super superlate right now, so I am going
to go have a nice week.We'll get to part two next Sunday.