November 15, 2021

In 1924, a tunnel network was discovered under Washington DC.

While driving behind Pelham Courts in mid-September of 1924, a truck’s tires sank into the ground, revealing the entrance to a forgotten underground shaft. The manager and janitor of the building decided to explore, and called up some newspapermen to report.

Reports indicated that the tunnels were long and extensive—that they may have reached as far as Rock Creek Park. Some electric lighting was discovered inside. For days, wild theories abounded. Was it a Confederate soldier hideout?  A stop on the Underground Railroad?  A liquor depot for bootleggers? A counterfeiter’s lair? Or maybe a secret laboratory for “Dr. Otto von Golph’s” experiments?

None of the above.

The Smithsonian Institute’s mosquito-expert entomologist, Harrison G. Dyar, let the public spectacle go on for a couple of days before admitting to city newspapers that he himself had dug the tunnels from about 1906 until 1916, at which time he moved away to California. Why? “I did it for exercise,” he told the Washington Post, “Digging tunnels after work is my hobby. There’s nothing really mysterious about it.”

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