The tunnels underneath Capitol Hill have always fascinated me, and anyone who has seen the bookcases that line every free space in my house knows my love of books. It is therefore inevitable that I write about the book tunnel that connected the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress with the Capitol in the early days of the former’s existence.
When the Library of Congress was finally turfed out of the Capitol itself, there was one issue that needed to be dealt with: How members of Congress would continue to get access to their books with the speed to which they had become accustomed. The library was then housed on the west front of the Capitol, just off the Rotunda, and thus equally accessible to both Houses. Now, with 1st Street SE separating the two buildings, it would dramatically increase the time needed to locate and deliver a book, time that might be of the essence if a Congressperson needed a quick fact during a floor speech.
As so often, the solution was a tunnel.
Thus, on August 18, 1894, an appropriations bill was passed by Congress that directed the “officer in charge of” building the new Library of Congress to “report to Congress at its next session plans and estimates of cost of a tunnel, with suitable conveying apparatus for the rapid transmission of books, papers, and messages at all times between the said building and the Senate and House wings of the Capitol.”
As part of his report on the continued construction of the new building, Thomas Lincoln Casey (pic) of the Army Corps of Engineers wrote on December 3 of that year that the tunnel would lead from directly underneath the main reading room, then angle northwest and come up in the northeast corner of the old Hall of Representatives, i.e., Statuary Hall. There was already a small storeroom in use by the Committee on Enrolled Bills, which had its office there. The tunnel, to be about four feet under the surface, would have space for a book conveyor, as well as a pneumatic tube to send messages, and telephone wires. Casey concluded that, “book carrier, pneumatic tube, and telephones … will largely do away with the necessity of going in person, or sending by messenger to the Library when books or information from that building are wanted.”
A view of the tunnel, with its mechanics installed. From a 1901 Report of the Librarian of Congress (Google Books)
The cost for all of this was not to exceed $35,000 and would be built during the summer of 1895 so that by the time Congress returned, “the present condition of the park and paved esplanade will be restored.”
On March 2, 1895, the Sundry Civil Act contained an appropriation of $900,000 for the building of the Library of Congress and authorized the builder to add “a tunnel, with suitable conveying apparatus for the rapid transmission of books, papers, and messages, between the said Library building and the Capitol”
In December of that year, Casey reported that in “the months of August and September, the tunnel … was constructed.” It was six feet high by 4 feet wide, and was “ready to receive the book-carrying apparatus.”
How much this work cost is not broken out in the table that Casey provided. There is only mention of a M. J. Foley who did “Excavation,” but it is not clear whether the tunnel work was meant by this.
Next week: The tunnel gets to work.