Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 March 1917 — WOULD BUILD LARGE TUNNEL [ARTICLE]

WOULD BUILD LARGE TUNNEL

Engineer Makes Proposition to Bore Hole Thirty Miles Long Through ' the Cascade Mountains. The greatest railroad tunnel project ever proposed has been recently suggested in an engineering publication by Brig. Gen. H. M. Chittenden, wlm is an authority on such matters, and -he proposes to bore a 30-mile hole through the Cascade mountains, with a Summit elevation Of no more than 1,000 feet above the sea level. General Chittenden suggests, after a careful study of the locality, that the best location would be at the point where the Columbia river, In Its great southern swing through the state of Washington on the eastern side of the Cascade mountains, comes nearest Puget sound. This point is found at the mouth of the Wenatchee river. The,distance between tide water at Everett or Seattle and the Columbia at Wenatchee is barely 90 miles. The valleys of the Wenatchee on the east side of the Cascades and Skykomish on the west side are almost in direct line to each other, and they lead by possible grades not exceeding 6 per cent to points on their respective sides of the mountains separated by a distance of only 30 miles. To expedite the work, four shafts from 1,100 feet to 2,320 feet in depth would be sunk along the line of the tunnel, and it is estimated that with these four shafts the 30 miles of tunnel could be put through in five and a half years at a total cost of $43,237,000.