Discover Top Posts Tagged with #summittunnel

Summit Tunnel

This is an image made near the western portal of the Tunnel Six, Donner Summit (therefore sometimes called Summit Tunnel). It should be noted that it was hand dug by Chinese workers in the 1860s. Until 1995 or so, this line was still active; it was part of the original transcontinental railroad across North America.

This portion was built by the Central Pacific, who employed up to ten thousand Chinese, and later became the Southern Pacific.

One image by Richard Koenig; taken October 7th 2011.

#railroadhistory #railwayhistory #tunnelsix #summittunnel #centralpacific #southernpacific #firsttranscontinentalrailroad

Weaving Waters: Summit Tunnel, Los Gatos Creek, CA

Today I gathered dirt and water for my “Weaving Waters” collaboration with Jessica Green from the Summit Tunnel. The Summit Tunnel is a railway tunnel in the Santa Cruz Mountains built by Chinese laborers in the late 1800s, where more than one horrific explosion happened. The tunnel is no longer in use, having been dynamited in 1942 by the Army Corps of Engineers.

I perch on the roots of a splintered tree, dead but so alive with moss ferns and ivy, its root tentacles reclaiming earth from concrete, patiently working dirt and clay. The continuous pour of water, splashing hard against rock and gravel and concrete walls softened by graffiti and wet green moss blending unexpectedly, harmoniously. I wonder what possessed the owners of the South Pacific Coast Railway to want to blast a tunnel through this mountain, a mountain belching methane and pockets of gas exploding collapsing on the bodies of the Chinese laborers who once worked here, who saved each other, who worked in mud and rock and dark, whose comrades became singed flesh, whose bones were never returned to China, who bravely did work stoppages and fought for better pay, all to open up a hole in this mountain, this mountain that fought back and reclaimed the land, this land now owned by the San Jose Water Company, this land that no one visits because NO TRESPASSING signs are everywhere, tacked to mossy trees and rocks and barbed wire fences. I wonder if my car has been towed. The water splashes loud, insistent, and my jars of dirt and water sit between two waterfalls, three sticks of incense burning a gentle plume of smoke, my small gesture of remembrance. I gathered the dirt from inside the tunnel, near where it was blocked from the dynamite blast in the 40s. The ground wet yet so packed and hard; I took a stick and scratched and scratched until I could gather a little earth with my fingers. I filled the jar bit by bit as I exited the tunnel, scratching and gathering, then placing some gravel from the tunnel mouth, some dirt and leaves from the outside, the living world. Now I sit and listen to the water, waiting for the incense to burn down, alone in remembering these nameless men who fought to chisel a hole out of a mountain.