History
The city of Chicago granted the newly formed Illinois Telephone and Telegraph company the rights to construct utility tunnels under the streets of Chicago in 1899 to carry its planned network of telephone cables. Initial plans for the tunnels called for filling them with phone cables, leaving a 6-foot (183 cm) by 14-inch (36 cm) passage for maintenance. When the city refused to permit manholes through which cable could be unreeled into the tunnels, the plans were changed to include rails for hauling cable spools through the tunnels. The city was largely unaware of the nature of the tunneling, and the first 16 miles (26 km) of tunnel were excavated somewhat covertly, working from the basement of a saloon and carting away the spoil after midnight.
Initially, the intended purpose of the narrow gauge railroad below the telephone cables was limited to hauling out excavation debris and hauling cable spools during the installation of telephone lines, but in 1903, the company renegotiated its franchise to allow the use of this railroad for freight and mail service. In early 1905, the system was taken over by the Illinois Tunnel Company. By this time, 26 miles (42 km) of a projected 60 miles (97 km) of tunnel had been completed. The actual construction work was subcontracted to the Illinois Telephone Construction Company, under the management of George W. Jackson (1861–1922).
Read more about this topic: Chicago Tunnel Company
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“... in a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)