If there is one topic that never grows old, it is the tunnels beneath historic downtown Flagstaff. I'm Susan Johnson, co-founder of Freaky Foot Tours, and I wrote a whole chapter about them in my book Wicked Flagstaff. The research was frustrating, fun and fascinating in about equal measure. Before I go further, a shout-out to filmmaker Nikki Charnstorm for her video "The Forgotten Underground" about Flagstaff's tunnels. You can find it on YouTube, it is well done, and I watched it several times to help guide my own digging.
A map of the Flagstaff Underground
My own interest began in 2005, when my late husband Paul, an engineer with the city, came home with a map of the Flagstaff Underground. While I worked an extra shift, he had joined an Arizona Historical Society tour covering the below-the-scenes history of some downtown buildings. Paul was not really into hauntings, but he was an engineer, and he thought tunnels were pretty cool. My memory is hazy now, but I remember him talking about opium pipes and a one-arm bandit machine found down there. He went into the utility tunnels other times for work, and the history always interested him more than the pipes did.
What were the tunnels for?
Mostly convenience and discretion. I have seen the remains of three underground passageways in as many years, and it is easy to imagine Flagstaffians of the 1920s and 30s using them. Several businesses wanted an easy way through downtown in winter, when the snow piles up fast. Then there was south of the tracks, where plenty of people preferred to stay unseen while they drank, gambled and did their thing in different establishments. The tunnels tell a story about life in this mountain town across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it is a dark, oddly romantic one.
Can you tour the tunnels under Flagstaff?
No. The historic steam tunnels were sealed shut, and nobody tours them, us included. If someone promises you an underground tour of Flagstaff, ask exactly what you will actually see before you hand over money. The real tunnel stories survive above ground, in the maps, the newspaper archives and the buildings that once connected to them, and we are careful to keep the documented history separate from the myths.
Walk this story
We tell the tunnel stories from street level, standing over the very blocks they run beneath, on the Flagstaff Haunted History Tour. It runs nightly at 7 PM, with an extra 8 PM walk Fridays and Saturdays, 75 minutes, $29 for adults. You will leave knowing what is really down there, and why it was sealed away.
