Just because it didn’t happen that way doesn’t mean the underground tunnels didn’t exist.
Any number of old-timers will tell you that such a notion is nothing short of lunacy. Others will say that not only were there tunnels under the city - long since sealed up - but that they actually traversed those tunnels back in the day.
Mark Erskine is one of those people. He used to use the tunnels to get from the old junior high school to the high school.
“I know the tunnels ran at least from the old junior high school to the old high school,” he said Friday.
“There was a door that supposedly opened up to another set of tunnels at Main Street that led to the Arcadia and other places but I never went in there, but a lot of people I know told me that they did. The trouble is, a lot of the people who remember those tunnels aren’t around anymore.”
A couple of recent references to the tunnels in this area have piqued some local curiosity. Just as it was back in 2001, when I first wrote about the tunnels for the Telegram, opinion is split on whether or not the tunnels actually exist.
Some of the people contacted for this story said they have never heard of the tunnels. Others said they have heard of them but haven’t explored them. Others used words like “balderdash” to express their opinion on the matter.
The underground tunnels are supposedly old steam tunnels that ran from the boiler room at either the old high school or the Santa Fe Depot to downtown businesses. The steam was used to heat downtown business buildings.
The steam supposedly ran through iron pipes that were prone to rust without proper maintenance. The tunnels were built, the story goes, to enable city workers to access the steam pipes and keep them in working order.
Bob Jones, who has owned the Cellar Bookstore on Central Avenue for the last quarter-century, can show you the place where an entrance to something underneath the streets of downtown Temple has been sealed with a thick wall of concrete.
“That’s the old entrance to the tunnels,” Jones says.
That, W.C. Pirtle said in 2001, is exactly right.
“I was the one who closed it up,” Pirtle said. “It was all concrete walls … the city wanted something done with it because of the fire codes.
“The tunnels hadn’t been used in years. There was a bunch of debris in there and they either had to install a sprinkler system or close it up. I got the job to close it up.”
Back when the tunnels were open, the building where the Cellar Bookstore is today was the site of a speakeasy, or saloon. Pirtle said city hall employees used the tunnels to get from city hall to the bar.
“It was an escape tunnel,” he said. “A lot of work got done in that beer joint.”
Over the years, Jones has had a fair share of visitors who remember his bookstore when it was rough-and-tumble beer joint.
“Old-timers come in here every now and then and tell me something about this place,” Jones said. “You hear some stories.
“One old guy told me that when the law came in through the tunnels, they were just dropping by to have a drink. If they came down the stairs, everybody better line up because it was going to be a raid.”
Erskine said that people still have lively discussions about whether or not the tunnels exist. A friend of his, the late Joe Bentley, could put a quick stop to the discussions.
“He was a coach at the old junior high,” Erskine said. “He said that’s how he would get from the junior high to the high school.”
Though what most people would call definitive proof of the tunnels hasn’t been presented in a manner that would stand up in something like a court of law, circumstantial evidence is strong and first-hand accounts are convincing. But it’s doubtful we’ll ever see them.
“They’re sealed up for good,” Pirtle said in 2001. “No one is going back down there any time soon.”
Unless, of course, something unforeseen happens and the tunnels are revealed for all the world - or at least Temple - to see.
