13 Men Were Trapped 583 Feet Underground — What They Did Next Is Incredible

On 17 October 1867, thirteen men were working at the bottom of the Central Shaft of the Hoosac Tunnel, 583 feet below the ridge in western Massachusetts. Above them stood a wooden hoisting house holding the pumps, the hoist and 2,000 gallons of naphtha. It caught fire. The building burned and fell into the shaft — the hoist, the drills, the timbers, the roof. Everything keeping those men alive was in that one structure at the top of the hole. What was found in the shaft a year later is the part that stays with you: a raft. Which means they were alive after the building came down on them. This is the story of the tunnel that took twenty-four years to build, the shaft that had to go exactly where it went, the chemist who made nitroglycerin on site because it was too dangerous to transport, and the afternoon it all arrived at the bottom at once. CHAPTERS 0:00 Thirteen men, 583 feet down 0:47 The mountain that was in the way 1:47 Twenty-four years and two failed contractors 3:06 Why the Central Shaft went exactly where it went 4:43 The man who made nitroglycerin on site 5:53 17 October 1867 8:21 What it cost 9:31 The tunnel today THE NUMBERS 52,081 feet end to end — 9.8 miles through Hoosac Mountain 1,028 feet — the Central Shaft's final depth 583 feet — how deep it was on the day of the fire 2,000,000 tons of rock removed 30,000,000 bricks in the arching 500,000 pounds of nitroglycerin made on site 195 men killed building it — the figure is disputed; others say 180 or 193, and many of the dead were immigrant labourers whose names were never written down SOURCES "The Great Bore: A Souvenir of the Hoosac Tunnel", 1891 — Internet Archive George Mowbray, "Tri-nitro-glycerin as Applied in the Hoosac Tunnel", 1872 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division Contemporary newspaper coverage, October 1867 1877 profile drawing of Hoosac Mountain showing the tunnel MUSIC "Long Note One", "Ossuary 1 – A Beginning", "Ossuary 6 – Air", "The Descent", "Anxiety" and "Echoes of Time v2" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License The tunnel is still in service. Both portals and the shaft are active railroad property — they are not places to walk. #HoosacTunnel #Massachusetts #RailroadHistory #Engineering #Disaster #1867 #IndustrialHistory #NewEngland #History #Documentary