in 1873, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway completed a tunnel through Church Hill in Richmond
Source: Virginia Commonwealth University, Church Hill Tunnel (photo by Harris H. Stilson)
in 1873, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway completed a tunnel through Church Hill in Richmond
Source: Virginia Commonwealth University, Church Hill Tunnel (photo by Harris H. Stilson)
At Richmond, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad cut the 3,927-foot long Church Hill Tunnel through a clay ridge in 1871-1873. The hill was named for St. John's Church, where Patrick Henry had delivered his stirring "Give me liberty or give me death" speech in 1775.
The railroad also constructed new docks on the James River, at the site of what became Intermediate Terminal. Not until 1882 did the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad extend its line 74 miles east and construct a terminal at Newport News, where ships needing deeper water could dock.
During tunnel construction, subsidence caused the home of the minister to collapse and broke nearby gas lines. One major subsidence event swallowed several houses:1
In 1901 the railroad completed a viaduct along the James River to bypass the congested route through the city, creating a three-level crossing of tracks that became famous. The Church Hill Tunnel was closed. In 1925, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad began to re-open the tunnel. Ditches were excavated beneath the existing brick walls as part of an effort to widen the tunnel in order to accommodate larger freight cars, and the railroad began to install concrete arches to support the roof and walls.
The weakened walls, without adequate bracing, could not support 70 feet of dirt on top. Almost 200 feet of the roof on the western end of the tunnel collapsed unexpectedly on the afternoon of October 2, 1925. Fissures as deep as 30 feet developed in the ground above the collapsed portion. Because the fissures developed in Jefferson Park, no houses were destroyed.
In the tunnel itself, a work train with one locomotive and 10 flatcars was buried. The engineer in the locomotive was killed, along with at least one black laborer and potentially several more. The engineer's body was recovered after nine days of digging through three shafts from the surface, but at least one laborer's body remains trapped underground along with the train. Efforts to recover them were abandoned as the clay roof continued to collapse.
The railroad added support to the portion of the tunnel that had not collapsed by installing cribs of railroad ties, then filled the tunnel with sand. Each end was sealed with a concrete plug, creating a tomb.
Subsidence is still occurring. The sand has settled, the railroad ties are rotting, and the water that steadily leaks through the roof has almost filled the tunnel. Since the 1925 collapse, more structures on top of the hill have shifted.2
the Church Hill Tunnel was constructed to provide a faster route to the railroad's docks near Rocketts Landing
Source: Library of Congress, Illustrated atlas of the city of Richmond, Va (Frederick W. Beers, 1877)
the Church Hill Tunnel was completed in 1873, closed in 1901, and collapsed in 1925
Source: Virginia Commonwealth University, Atlas of the City of Richmond (George William Baist, 1889)