FOUND BURIED UNDERGROUND: Churches, Castles, Cities - Discoveries of the 1800s & Early 1900s

Are you also fascinated by stuff like this? Windows and doors found buried deep underground.

I sure am fascinated by it.

Want to hear something funny? I purchased Grammarly to help me spellcheck my articles. It keeps telling me to change the phrase “found underground” to “built underground” because even Grammarly knows it doesn’t make sense. But surely nobody intentionally built a window underground. Anyway, looking at a bunch of photos like this gave me the idea to go through historic news archives and search for “found buried underground” and similar keywords. Let’s see what I dug up (pun intended)…

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Wanna listen instead of read? You’ll miss all of the crazy photos at the end, but you’ll still get the gist of it.

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(These are in no specific order. Most of the images were made by me unless labeled “actual photo”. The papers were old and did not contain any images, so I used their words and my imagination to guess at what they found.)

THE 1914 TUNNELS

Let's start with an article from the Bartlesville Examiner Enterprise, dated July 1914, called Vigilantes Describe Many Tortures Inflicted on Helpless Girls in the Great Chicago Levee Tunnel. What had happened was, excavation was being performed to build a new building on an old property. As the digging commenced, excavators hit a tunnel and contacted the police. Police discovered a “big system of tunnels and underground passages” beneath 22nd Street in the Vice District.

As if that’s not weird enough, this story takes a dark turn: It says, there had been “a hundred weird tales of the mysterious disappearance of young girls and women and even men, never to be heard of again… Young girls escaping from the dives and making their way to rescue homes have told strange tales of dark underground dens and dungeons, places where persons disappeared mysteriously and were not ever seen again”. It went on to say, “Time after time, hundreds of times, we have been told rumors of young and innocent girls trapped by white slavers and taken by stealth into the vice-ridden district, being hidden in these underground dens, where they were beaten into submission and became inmates of the vice dives, that they might escape the tortures inflicted on them in the underground dungeons.”

All along, these accusations of underground tunnels and rooms with captives had been chalked up to lunacy (old school “conspiracy theory”), but now that the police were seeing them with their own eyes, the stories were suddenly believed.

The article went on to say, these tunnels featured “underground passages, basements, and sub-basements” which led to underground rooms and dens. This means they not only had rooms underground (basements), they also had even lower levels below those rooms (subbasements). These were thought to be being used by sex traffickers. The rooms were said to have “wretched beds in them”. Other rooms had large quantities of quicklime, believed to have been stored for the purpose of “obliterating traces of bodies buried in it”. This belief was confirmed when police uncovered a human skeleton.

I wanted to see what this elaborate tunnel system looked like, but a search for “Chicago Levee Tunnel” told me I must be referring to the stormwater and sewage tunnels - no Google, I am referring to the secret tunnel system that police found in 1914, and I think you know that.

I then located a Wikipedia page for the Levee, Chicago. Wiki says, “The Levee District was the red-light district of Chicago from the 1880s until 1912, when police raids shut it down… The Levee District was home to many brothels, saloons, dance halls, and similar places.” Of course, on Wiki, there is no mention of the tunnels because this is history that history would like to scrub. History would like to continue with the narrative that only conspiracy theorists claim such nonsensical things, like the world is filled with secret tunnel systems.

THE SAN FRAN FORTRESSES

Next, we have an article from The San Francisco Examiner (1885) called The Horrors of Chinatown. In this article, we learn that a committee of 500 citizens was appointed to investigate Chinatown for leprosy. Through this process, underground hiding places and fortresses were found. The definition of fortress is “a large, strong building or group of buildings that can be defended from attack”.

The piece goes on to say, “in other underground tunnels we discovered, excavations 10 to 15 feet square containing from 15 to 20 human beings. Into these excavations, the beautiful sunlight never penetrates”. They claimed these are the tombs of the living, tombs dug in the very heart of the center of the great city.

After the discovery of these underground lairs, the city said no citizens should attempt to explore them because there could be leprosy in the tunnel, so make sure you stay out and do not, under any circumstance, investigate.

THE UNDERGROUND ROOMS

In 1911, an article titled Unearthed Passageway, said, “Workmen making sewer connections for an ancient bode house in South Pasadena discovered underground rooms,” which they referred to as a retreat. The article went on to state, “The old abode house is one that stood just off the road on Foothill Street. At the house was a 200-year-old pepper tree”.

Let's see if we can find this location on Google Maps. Here’s Foothill Street in South Pasadena:

Well, the location still seems to exist, but which plot of land it is, I have no idea. Does anyone live near here and want to go look for a pepper tree? I wonder if these residents are aware they are living on top of an underground retreat?

THE MASSIVE UNDERGROUND HOTEL

Next up is an article from 1917. This one says, near Roye, the British discovered, “an underground citadel to accommodate at least 3,000 men and perfectly screened by wood on every side was discovered underground. There were hundreds of chambers and a maze of tunnels and officers' quarters, which were timbered, paneled, and papered and had fancy curtains. These were furnished with beds, mirrors, washstands, easy chairs, and stoves. The men's quarters were said to be comfortable. The whole place was self-contained.” It was an underground city that included kitchens, baths, carpenters, and blacksmith shops! For reference, a typical Holiday Inn Express is said to have 60 to 80 rooms. If four people stayed in every room, that is approximately 280 guests. This underground town held 3,000 men! That is equal to approximately ten Holiday Inn Expresses!

THE WELL ROOM

In 1912, there was an article published called A Peculiar Discovery, Reminder of Early History.

This one says, “while a body of men were carrying out some excavation work inside Dowie’s Boot Factory at 8th Street in Bowdon, they made a peculiar discovery. They came upon what they took to be a well, which proved to be an underground room 10 feet by 12 feet by 9 feet. It was four feet below the surface.” They also found a tunnel extending several feet and leading to another room somewhat smaller than the last, but from this room, there was another tunnel extending 30 feet. They claim this tunnel led to a dead end, or at least it was a dead end when they explored it, which doesn’t mean it was always a dead end.

I learned the South Australian Boot Factory was established in Adelaide by Alexander Dowie, a Scottish emigrant who arrived in South Australia in 1851, so this underground room predates the establishment of his company.

UNDERGROUND CHURCHES?

Next, in 1909, we have a really interesting article called Rare Antiquities Found, Discovered in the Nile Valley of Egypt.

As of the time, this was said to be the most valuable antiquity discovered, and what I find really interesting is that it says, “An excavation of a number of churches in the neighborhood brought to light early Christian antiquities of great interest which were allotted by the terms of our agreement with the government”. They found a bunch of churches underground!? And what does it mean that it brought to light what was allotted by the terms of the agreement with the government? To me, this sounds like only some of the discoveries were allowed to be shared. Believe it or not, this wasn’t the only time a church was located underground…

FLORIDA’S UNDERGROUND CHURCH

This one is pretty wild. In 1925, a church was found under a church in Florida!

This article, Buried Church is Discovered, says the subterranean church was found under the Church of the Virgin in Tampa Bay when the foundation was excavated to build a new church. The walls of the underground church were all painted with saints and halos in fresh, bold colors and were perfectly preserved.

THE WASHINGTON TUNNELS

Next, we have an article from 1924 called, Network of Underground Tunnels Discovered Under Part of Washington City.

In this instance, a truck broke a hole in what appeared to be plain earth, but it turned out to be another tunnel system. The paper reported, “the capital city hummed tonight with unrestrained excitement over a little mystery all its own. The discovery of a network of underground tunnels or a labyrinth of catacombs in the exclusive northwest section of the city.” Engineers said the masonry in the tunnel was of the finest construction and must have cost a fortune.

They claim that a date, 1913, was found on one piece of concrete block within the labyrinth. Some residents of the neighborhood claimed they had been aware of the tunnels for at least 20 years.

What’s interesting is, if you try to look up “catacombs Washington City”, you are led to the Catacombs of Washington, D.C., which history now has a story for, “Franciscan monks created a facsimile of the Holy Land for North Americans who couldn’t afford the trip overseas.” History now claims these catacombs, now called the Franciscan Monastery Catacombs, aren’t really anything special, and there is surprisingly little information on them.

While that is all amusing, after light research, I don’t think these are the catacombs from the news article. The news piece says “a network of underground tunnels or a labyrinth of catacombs in the exclusive northwest section of the city”. The Franciscan Monastery Catacombs are located in the Northeast. Here is DC with the property border highlighted:

I would expect the labyrinth of tunnels to be somewhere in this area:

THEY FOUND AN ENTIRE CITY

This one will blow your mind! In the 1800s, in Italy, an entire city was found underground.

The city was named Herculaneum, and it was such a Herculean task that excavations stopped on it until 1907.

ACTUAL PHOTOS:

If you look at Google Maps, you can see how much lower this city is compared to the city built on top of it because there is a retaining wall:

Simply astonishing!

MOSCOW: TOP SECRET

In Moscow, the city had installed a simple water drainage system, but after only a few years of use, the foundations of buildings began sinking. Nobody knew why. It was determined that the drainage system must not be deep enough, so they set about to excavate deeper, and this is when they found underground passages. Interestingly, the paper says, “Unfortunately, it appears still to be thought necessary to conceal the results of the recent discoveries…”, so we don’t really know what else was uncovered. Apparently, something important enough to hide.

THE WALL

If we go back to 1891, an article appeared in the paper saying a wall had been discovered underground near Cleveland, Tennessee. The stones were covered with hieroglyphic characters. That's all the article says.

Here’s Cleveland, Tennessee:

It was built on top of walls, apparently.

DISCOVERED IN GREECE

In a piece called Antiquities Discovered in Greece, we learn that in 1852, they started digging in Greece and found the last steps of a staircase, “which led to the principal entrance to the citadel… The steps were made of marble and not a joint of them had been displaced. The door was 12 feet high and of the Doric order.” I imagine this looked something like this:

The lintel and casing of the door were said to have been cut from a single block of marble. A door lintel is the horizontal structural beam that spans the top of a door opening, supporting the weight of the wall or roof above it, and the casing is the frame of the door, so all of this was cut out of a solid block of marble:

The wall itself was 21 feet high and composed of all different kinds of marble. At its base were pedestals and fragments of the Roman epoch, which would have looked something like this:

The piece said, “The upper part of the wall was arranged with a certain taste and comprises the entablature of several Doric temples.” This means the upper part of the wall was something like this:

The men who found this amazing antiquity were hoping they would be able to “dig up the great bastion to discover the construction of the western wall” on their next trip to the site because they had already found two other arches in perfect preservation. A bastion is a projecting part of a fortification. (not an actual photo.)

They suspected what they discovered was from the Roman-Byzantine epoch, although there was no way to know (history doesn’t know, it never knows, it guesses and fills in blanks, which is why none of it makes sense).

MEXICO’S UNDERGROUND PREHISTORIC CITY

In the next newspaper article, we have another prehistoric city, this time discovered in Mexico. It was buried underground for so long that it was “covered by great trees and thick vegetation”. This was found in the mountain region of the state of Veracruz and was said to be one of the most important archaeological finds made among the buried cities of Mexico.

“The buildings of this city are of a time long ago, but are still as brightly frescoed on the outside as they were at the mysterious, unknown date when they were discovered and left for the earth to cover them with trees.”, the paper said.

A frescoed building features fresco paintings, which are murals created by applying pigments to wet plaster.

Incredibly, the paint survived! And even more mind-blowing, the article says some of the houses they discovered underground were four and five stories high! This is a five-story building, imagine this being underground!

THE TUNNELS OF THE 1500s

In 1912, there was an article in the St. James Leader Journal called Newly Discovered Underground Workings. It says that the tunnels they found look as good as new, even though they assumed they were several hundred years old. No trees had grown into the tunnels - that’s how well they were built! History then claimed these were built by Cardinal Wolsey, the Archbishop of York, back in 1514. So yeah, they're saying that guy built these tunnels back in the 1500s, and they looked brand new in the 1900s, but reality is, we have no clue who built them.

CATACOMBS OF ROME

It was reported that the Catacombs of Rome were discovered in the 1500s when workmen were digging streets in Rome. As they dug down, they hit an “underground chamber”. “From it stretched passages and rooms of various sizes in every direction”, it was said to be a city under their city.

ACTUAL PHOTOS:

If you didn’t notice, this decor is all human skulls:

…because that’s not hugely morbid or anything…

These catacombs are loaded with skulls and bones, huge piles of them:

Ignoring the skulls and bones, and ignoring whatever the true purpose was for this creepy underground city, folks, think about this one: in the 1500s, they were shocked to discover there was basically an entire city under the city of Rome. This means this below-earth city predates the 1500s. How far back does it go? 100 more years? 500? 1,000? More? History tells us that back in the medieval period, mallets were made of wood…

…and saws were shitty junk:

They tell us that land was excavated using horses and plows, soil and rock were lifted using primitive rope and pulley systems affixed with buckets.

The total length of the Rome tunnels is estimated to be around 150 kilometers, approximately 93 miles! Can you imagine how long that would take, one bucket of dirt at a time?

Here’s the catacombs of Paris:

We don’t even know how big these are, so history says they are “approximately 280 kilometers (about 174 miles) to as much as 350 kilometers (217 miles)”. To give you an idea of how far 200 miles is, it is around the distance from Detroit, Michigan, to Cincinnati, Ohio!

That’s a lot of digging!

Here’s the Catacombs under St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York:

… rope and pulleys…

Granted, the New York catacombs, they claim, were built in the early 1800s, so they are hundreds of years newer than the others; nonetheless, the tools were primitive, and they didn’t have electricity, says history.

To dig a tunnel today, we currently use giant tunnel boring machines:

These things cost between $5 million and $100 million:

We are told, with all our amazing modern tools and machinery, we can build like never before, and we end up with this:

And this:

And this:

And these:

New churches look like this:

…something just isn’t adding up…

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SOURCES, NOTES & OTHER STUFF

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1182631525/?match=1&terms=%22discovered%20underground%22

Also this link https://www.johnsoncitypress.com/living/features/enormous-cave-discovered-in-claiborne-county-in-1899/article_5df2743e-fe3d-56bb-a63f-01959862fdc3.html

So then we have in 1899 a new cave was discovered. This one was an underground cave and there was an opening in the Tennessee mountains. They called it a strange site.

They said this cave is believed to be even bigger than the Cave in Kentucky and the Luray Caverns in Virginia. This new cave was discovered in Claiborne County, Tennessee, a few miles from Middlesboro, Kentucky. When they entered it, they traveled down 100 feet to a magnificent chamber which was so large that a regiment could maneuver in it.

The floor and walls of the chamber were perfectly smooth. Leading from the chamber were four passages. One passage was selected by the explorers because a strong current of air was coming through it.

They walked about half a mile through the passage and it began to widen.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1182631525/?match=1&terms=%22discovered%20underground%22

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1039210434/?match=1&terms=%22discovered%20underground%22

https://www.newspapers.com/image/259018898/?match=1&terms=antiquities%20discovered

St Louis expo https://www.newspapers.com/image/1074542222/?match=1&terms=antiquities%20discovered

https://www.newspapers.com/image/678535938/?match=1&terms=antiquities%20discovered%20buried%20

https://www.newspapers.com/image/392512878/?match=1&terms=antiquities%20discovered

https://www.newspapers.com/image/734930669/?match=1&terms=buried%20antiquities%20 - olympia

Chicago Fire https://www.rpwrhs.org/w/index.php?title=Chicago_Title_and_Trust_Company

• https://www.newspapers.com/image/299224520/?match=1&terms=antiquities%20underground