News > LocalPublished: August 02, 2009 12:05 am No comments posted. Font Size:
Steel mill tunnel a passage to the past
CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/MIKE SWEENEY -- Amy Vigil (left) and Lynard Martin walk the underground tunnel workers at the steel mill formerly traveled between their job site and the outside world. The couple took in the Bessemer Historical Society's Tunnel Day at the Steelworks Museum on Saturday, marking the tunnel's first public opening since 1997.Main Gate opens to the public for the first time in 12 years.By NICK BONHAM THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAINFootsteps once again echoed through the halls of one of Pueblo's historic passages Saturday.
Like generations of Puebloans before them, people walked through Colorado Fuel & Iron Corporation's Main Gate, two tunnels under Interstate 25 that led employees in and out of the historic steel mill.
Pueblo's history is entrenched in steel making. From 1956 until 1997, the tunnel was a major entrance and exit for laborers.
Saturday was the first time the tunnel, purchased by the Bessemer Historical Society in 2002, had been opened for the public in more than a decade.
Some folks came to reminisce. Some came to ask questions. Some came to just walk and look at the tunnel that runs about 15 feet below the busy highway. "It's good to see so many go through the tunnel," said Janet Boyd, a mill employee of 31 years who was one of Saturday's tunnel guides.
Boyd's father, Fred Thomas, worked in the mill's chemical lab for 46 years, and her grandfather made a career in the mill's powerhouse. She works in the legal department as a records custodian.
"It's funny how people would remember waiting for their husband as they came out of the tunnel. There was a woman who said she remembered always meeting her father with his lunch pail in hand."
The tunnel is located outside the historical society's Steelworks Museum, 215 Canal St., in Bessemer.
Before the interstate, the tunnel ran under railroad tracks.
The Main Gate resembles the entrance of a subway or metro station. Through the tall metal turnstiles and down two flights of stairs, the pair of concrete passages were once filled shoulder-to-shoulder with mill employees.
One tunnel was for traffic entering the mill and the other for exiting foot traffic. Out of use for about 12 years, the tunnel has an air of eeriness, but on Saturday it exuded an aura of pride and wonder.
John Wolf, 29, has worked at the mill for more than three years. A crane operator, he, like many Puebloans, has a deep roots with the mill.
"I have three generations of steel workers on one side of the family and four on the other," Wolf said. "There's a lot of history to the mill and a lot of my relatives went through the tunnel."
Steel mill tunnel a passage to the past
CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/MIKE SWEENEY -- Amy Vigil (left) and Lynard Martin walk the underground tunnel workers at the steel mill formerly traveled between their job site and the outside world. The couple took in the Bessemer Historical Society's Tunnel Day at the Steelworks Museum on Saturday, marking the tunnel's first public opening since 1997.Main Gate opens to the public for the first time in 12 years.By NICK BONHAM THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAINFootsteps once again echoed through the halls of one of Pueblo's historic passages Saturday.
Like generations of Puebloans before them, people walked through Colorado Fuel & Iron Corporation's Main Gate, two tunnels under Interstate 25 that led employees in and out of the historic steel mill.
Pueblo's history is entrenched in steel making. From 1956 until 1997, the tunnel was a major entrance and exit for laborers.
Saturday was the first time the tunnel, purchased by the Bessemer Historical Society in 2002, had been opened for the public in more than a decade.
Some folks came to reminisce. Some came to ask questions. Some came to just walk and look at the tunnel that runs about 15 feet below the busy highway. "It's good to see so many go through the tunnel," said Janet Boyd, a mill employee of 31 years who was one of Saturday's tunnel guides.
Boyd's father, Fred Thomas, worked in the mill's chemical lab for 46 years, and her grandfather made a career in the mill's powerhouse. She works in the legal department as a records custodian.
"It's funny how people would remember waiting for their husband as they came out of the tunnel. There was a woman who said she remembered always meeting her father with his lunch pail in hand."
The tunnel is located outside the historical society's Steelworks Museum, 215 Canal St., in Bessemer.
Before the interstate, the tunnel ran under railroad tracks.
The Main Gate resembles the entrance of a subway or metro station. Through the tall metal turnstiles and down two flights of stairs, the pair of concrete passages were once filled shoulder-to-shoulder with mill employees.
One tunnel was for traffic entering the mill and the other for exiting foot traffic. Out of use for about 12 years, the tunnel has an air of eeriness, but on Saturday it exuded an aura of pride and wonder.
John Wolf, 29, has worked at the mill for more than three years. A crane operator, he, like many Puebloans, has a deep roots with the mill.
"I have three generations of steel workers on one side of the family and four on the other," Wolf said. "There's a lot of history to the mill and a lot of my relatives went through the tunnel."
No comments:
Post a Comment