Eisenhower Tunnel - History

History

The idea for a tunnel under Loveland Pass has existed at least since the 1940s. Serious discussion began when the state of Colorado lobbied for the Interstate Highway System to route a transcontinental interstate across Colorado. After a round of negotiations with Utah officials, it was decided the best option was to follow the US 6 corridor. Engineers recommended to tunnel under the pass rather than attempt to build a route across it that conformed to Interstate Highway standards.

The Eisenhower–Johnson Memorial Tunnel was known as the Straight Creek Tunnel during construction, named for the waterway that runs along the western approach to the tunnel. Before the tunnel was dedicated it was renamed to honor Dwight D. Eisenhower and Edwin C. Johnson. Construction on the first bore of the tunnel was started on March 15, 1968. Construction efforts suffered many setbacks and the project went well over time and budget. One of the biggest setbacks was the discovery of fault lines in the path of the tunnel that were not discovered during the pilot bores. These faults began to slip during construction and emergency measures had to be taken to protect the tunnels and workers from cave-ins and collapses. Despite the best efforts of engineers, three workers were killed boring the first tube, and six in boring the second. Further complicating construction, the boring machines could not work as fast as expected at such high altitudes; the productivity was significantly less than planned. The frustration prompted one engineer to comment, "We were going by the book, but the damned mountain couldn't read". Though the project was supposed to take three years, the tunnel was not opened to traffic until March 8, 1973. Initially this tunnel (the Eisenhower bore) was used for two way traffic, with one lane for each direction. The amount of traffic through the tunnel exceeded predictions, and efforts soon began to expedite construction on the second tube (the Johnson bore). Construction began on the eastbound tunnel on August 18, 1975 and finished on December 21, 1979. The initial engineering cost estimate for the Eisenhower bore was $42 million; the actual cost was $108 million (equivalent to $565 million in 2012). Approximately 90% of the funds were paid by the federal government, with the state of Colorado paying the rest. At the time, this figure set a record for the most expensive federally aided project. The excavation cost for the Johnson bore was $102.8 million (equivalent to $329 million in 2012). Not included in these figures is about $50 million in non-boring expenses in the construction of both tunnels.

The tunnel construction became unintentionally involved in the women's rights movement when Janet Bonnema applied for work with the Colorado Department of Transportation. She was given an assignment on the Straight Creek Tunnels project, however her supervisor misread her resume and thought he was hiring "James". When the supervisor discovered the department had hired a woman, she was instead tasked with doing support work from the office. There was opposition to a woman entering the construction site: one supervisor stated that if she entered, "Those workers would flat walk out of that there tunnel and they'd never come back". The workers, most of whom had a mining background, expressed a common superstition that a woman brought bad luck to a mine. One worker insisted, "It's a jinx. I've seen too many die after a woman was in the tunnel." Janet sued the department for the right to work in the tunnel itself. She countered that she was in better shape and more agile than most of the men working on the tunnel. Emboldened by the passage of an equal rights law in Colorado, she finally entered the tunnel, with an entourage of reporters, on November 9, 1972. Some workers did walk off the job, at least one yelled, "Get those women out of here". She remained determined and re-entered the tunnel a few days later. The next time she dressed in coveralls, and was even assigned tasks on the roof of the tunnel overlooking the men below. Surprised that nobody apparently noticed she was a woman, she stated, "I had a good disguise".