In the late 1890s, Chicago faced unprecedented gridlock caused by thousands of horse-drawn wagons delivering coal, removing ashes, and hauling freight through the Loop. To solve this without congesting the surface further, the Illinois Telephone and Telegraph Company hatched a secretive scheme. While their official permit only authorized digging small sub-surface trenches for telephone cables, they secretly excavated an entire subterranean freight railway system 40 feet underground.
Dug through soft blue clay without disturbing street traffic, the tunnels eventually stretched across 60 miles. Lined with concrete, these narrow foot-and-a-half gauge tracks carried electric locomotives hauling miniature freight cars filled with coal, ash, and retail merchandise directly into the basements of major department stores and office buildings. Buildings like Marshall Field's and Carson Pirie Scott had freight elevators descending directly into the tunnel network.
This subterranean network operated silently for decades, hidden from the public eye, transporting millions of tons of coal and refuse while keeping Chicago's surface streets functional. The system eventually fell into decline as buildings shifted from coal to gas heating and trucking dominated logistics, culminating in the infamous 1992 Chicago Flood when a stray piling breached a tunnel under the Chicago River.