The Flagstaff Tunnels

If I had a dollar for every time someone on a tour asked me about the Flagstaff underground tunnels…I’d still have to work for a living. But if all the guides pooled their money from being asked the above, I bet we could at least rent an airbnb for a party!

The tunnels, which run beneath downtown Flag and reportedly beneath the tracks to N.A.U., are as legendary as they are mysterious. I’ve read various accounts of their beginnings, most of which date them to the early 1900s. The history I’m familiar with says the tunnel system was devised to carry steam heat to the various buildings and shops downtown. They were eventually widened to accommodate people passing (or possibly hiding) unnoticed from one basement to another. While I’ve been fortunate enough to see the remains of one such tunnel system, the passageway was packed with dirt and gigantic rocks, and the entrance was behind a locked door.

While it seems fairly certain that the tunnels originated as a way to heat the town, artifacts were discovered to suggest illegal activities took place in them as well. Before they were closed off, opium pipes and bottles of moonshine were found littering the floors. Some accounts say gaming tables and old slot machines–evidence of the gambling that we know took place–were also discovered. Stories of raids on the Chinese population have haunted Flagstaff for decades, and many attribute the opium dens as the reason behind them.

While I wrote that the downtown tunnel system has been closed off, that’s not entirely true. There are businesses on South Beaver that still have a functioning, if rather dark and frightening, passageway to buildings across the street. Many of those tunnels are related to houses of prostitution–but that’s a subject for another page.