This old postcard shows buildings along the Kansas River at Lawrence, including the Bowersock Mills and Power Company to the left of the bridge and dam. In the late 1800s, energy generated from the dam fueled many downtown businesses, which accessed the power supply through a series of underground tunnels.

When buried, history can easily be forgotten.

Such is the case with the red brick tunnels that once carried mechanical power from Bowersock Dam to what was the heart of Lawrence’s manufacturing district.

Built around the time the dam first went into operation and used until mechanical power was replaced with electrical power at the turn of the century, the tunnels helped convey the energy needed to fuel the budding town of Lawrence.

More than 100 years later, remnants of the tunnels remain, but few know of their existence — including those who own the buildings that sit right over top of them.

“I would say that most have long been forgotten,” Michael Lechtenberg said.

A few decades ago, Lechtenberg came across the tunnels when his electric supply store moved from 616 Mass.

Today, he believes most of the tunnels have been boarded up and covered with concrete floors.

Stephen Hill, president of Bowersock Mills and Power Co., said that while he had heard rumors of tunnels, he had yet to come across proof of their existence.

David Millstein, who owns Liberty Hall, 644 Mass., has always thought they were a “romantic notion, a folk story,” his wife, Susan Millstein, said.

But there is proof.

Peter Zacharias said he was inside one 40 years ago. While at the Lawrence Paper Company, Zacharias took a break to do some underground exploration of the building that is now Abe and Jake’s Landing, 8 E. Sixth St.

With a co-worker, they went 30 or 40 feet into a tunnel, which was just barely tall enough for someone to stand up inside. He believes the tunnel continued down New Hampshire Street to the building that formerly housed Reuter Organ Company, 612 N.H. When the tunnels were carrying mechanical power, Wilder Brothers Shirt Factory operated in that building.

A 1987 article published in the Lawrence Journal-World told of two other tunnels uncovered when the Underwood building, 608 Mass., was torn down.

Steve Jansen, former director of the Watkins Museum of History, said tunnels ran from the dam along the east side of Massachusetts Street to about the middle of the 700 block.

The downtown tunnels aren’t to be confused with Kansas University’s five miles of underground steam tunnels, which are still in use. Some people also have the mistaken belief that the tunnels were part of the Underground Railroad, which had a strong presence in Lawrence.

“It’s not plausible that it operated before the Civil War,” Jansen said of the tunnel system.

Energy shortage

What the tunnels did provide was the necessary energy to spur industry in Lawrence. According to Kenneth A. Middleton’s 1940 master thesis on manufacturing in Lawrence, the region had an energy supply shortage at the time.

“During the 20 years of auspicious beginnings in Lawrence, one specter rose to cast its shadow over the thriving optimism of the little town. The specter was the high cost of power,” Middleton wrote.

Wood was scarce, coal was expensive to transport and wind wasn’t practical. Only two options remained — finding local deposits of natural gas or coal, and tapping into water power.

In 1874, the dam across the Kaw River did just that. And more than a decade later, the dam fueled eight businesses, including those that made shirts, barbed wire, paper, flour and patent medicines.

By 1890 there were 12 turbine wheels pumping out 900 horsepower.

Cables ran through the tunnels, carrying the energy generated from the dam’s turbines. Attached to those cables were pulleys.

Each building had openings to access the pulleys, which were then connected by leather belts to another set of pulleys inside the building. The technology was brought from the East and not uncommon for towns of the era, Lechtenberg said.

The system would look similar to the mechanics behind a threshing machine, Jansen said.

Today, many of the downtown shop owners and clerks classify the rumors of underground tunnels as urban legends. For Lechtenberg, it’s a tale that shouldn’t be buried.

“When they tell us stories about Lawrence, there is a lot of history here and a lot of the history is true,” he said. “So believe it.”

— Special projects reporter Christine Metz can be reached at 832-6352.