Extensive Campus Tunnel System Once in Operation, Now in Decay

Since the 1930s, a tunnel system has existed under the Academy’s quads, dorms and classrooms. While frequently the subject of lore and myth, the tunnels have a practical, albeit infrequent, use.

Active tunnels currently lie between Bancroft Hall and Webster Hall, Lamont Hall and the Lamont Health Center, the Class of 1945 Library and Elm Street Dining Hall and Wetherell Dining Hall and both Merrill and Wheelwright Halls. According to Anita Bailey, senior program manager of Facilities Management, a tunnel between Webster and Dunbar Hall was closed off and removed in 2010 because it leaked water into Dunbar “and was no longer needed.”

The tunnels were always and remain completely off-limits to all students. The system was constructed as a part of the Harkness Expansion plan.

In the mid-1900s, Dining Services was not centralized in the dining halls that exist today. In an effort to increase hospitality and homeliness, as well as to compensate for the lack of dining halls, meals were served in dorms; this required the food to be distributed from underground kitchens, most of which were in the Bancroft basement, to the dormitories. The tunnels served as a service route through which food could be transported from one dorm to the next without needing to be carried above ground.

However, in the 1970s, when Wetherell and Elm Street dining halls were built, food distribution among and inside dorms was no longer necessary and the tunnels were given more mundane, less mythic purposes. For instance, according to Bailey, the tunnel at Bancroft is now used for utility runs, as is the tunnel between Lamont Hall and Lamont Health, and the Library and Elm Street Dining. Tunnels connected by the basement of Wetherell dining hall are used for dining and catering storage. Bailey said there are no current plans for those uses to change in any way.

For the Winter 1996 issue of the Exeter Bulletin, Pamela Manix ‘72 wrote of her time spent in the tunnels at the Academy. Growing up as the daughter of the Head Chef, she had “raced through the tunnels beneath Exeter… and a virtual second world existed beneath the quads.”

In her piece, Manix described an extensive system that students today will never witness. “Small motorized vehicles, wagons, dumbwaiters and elevators communicated back and forth between the vast kitchens… I would slide down concrete chutes on cases of canned goods and sacks of grain being delivered down into the kitchens,” Manix wrote.

While Manix’s stories may be alive in the imaginations of students, her experiences are strictly personal. The population above ground, forbidden from accessing the tunnels, formed and continues to form impressions far more sensational than the actual purposes.

Alumnus and English instructor Brooks Moriarty, who grew up in Exeter, said “I was aware of the tunnels when I was a student. I lived in Cilley which didn’t have tunnels, as far as I know, so the mythology was less vivid than it was for kids I knew living in Webster or Dunbar or Bancroft. There was, however, talk of bowling alleys, rifle ranges and stuff like that.”

Now it seems the Exeter tunnels have been all but forgotten. Many of the tunnels have been renovated or closed down due to lack of use. Students have little knowledge of their existence, much less their history. However, the lore has lived through the changes and still weaves into the Exeter fabric of today.

Some students still encounter the entrance to tunnels between buildings like Merrill and Wheelwright and Wetherell, whose locations take little sleuthing. But Wetherell Dining Services Manager Heidi Brousseau said those tunnels between the dorms and the dining hall are sealed and those that remain only serve as space for storage.

Although many of the tunnels have been closed, remnants and historic entrances can still be found in dorms like Bancroft. Moriarty, Banroft’s dorm head, said, “[In Bancroft], you can still see the old dumbwaiter elevator where food carts would roll out of the tunnel to be transported up to the first floor common room.”

Bailey said that while she doesn’t know of any specific stories of students gaining access to tunnels, she told The Exonian in 2011 that “people have entered and left signs that they were there.” In a recent interview, she added that “students were able to gain access from time to time,” despite the quite secure entrances and tunnel pathways. And while an underground world has served the fascinations of many students, she said that besides the workers who need access to the tunnels, “no one seems to be standing in line waiting for the opportunity to go through the tunnels.”

The intrigue of the tunnel system, however, still stands. Many students are fascinated by the idea of finding and exploring the tunnels if the opportunity were to present itself. Upper Aivant Goyal said, “I have never been down to any tunnel passageways but it’s definitely on my bucket list.”

Others believe that old tunnels could still be put to use during the cold winters here at Exeter. Upper Joanna Papadakis said that she first heard about the tunnels from an English instructor her prep year. “The topic arose after a discussion about the freezing winter weather and our wishes that we could be transported to our classes without having to go outside,” Papadakis said.

While stories and fantasies live on and certain uses continue in the tunnels, they are a largely defunct and essentially inaccessible to the vast majority of community members. This will not stop the stories of students sneaking in through illicit access and engaging in illicit activities, but the reality of Exeter’s tunnels is far more banal and simply practical than its myths.