Would be state capitol? (Putnam City/Warr Acres subterranean tunnels)
Would-be State Capitol?
In the summer of 1910, Oklahoma voters selected Oklahoma City for their capitol. Entrepreneur I.M Putnam planned development on a large tract of land he intended to donate along with cash to the state if it would build the capitol there. In August, Governor Haskell accepted the Capitol Commission’s recommendation for Putnam’s land as the site of the building. The building, which was at the heart of Putnam’s plan, was located near N.W. 40th and modern-day N.W. 39th, which was at that time called Putnam City Boulevard; it was a wide, tree-lined boulevard with railroad tracks down the center.
A large forested park, called Putnam City Grove, ran from N.W. 34th to N.W. 39th, between today’s Ann Arbor and Grove. That summer and fall of 1910, engineers and laborers began to excavate and lay utility lines in the area for the capitol.
By November, however, legal issues were brought up regarding the legality of the ballot which named Oklahoma City the capitol was invalid. If the ballot was illegal, then the Capitol Commission wasn’t valid, and Putnam City was not the site of the new capitol.
The legislature then convened and declared that the will of the people was for Oklahoma City to be the capitol, which set the wheels in motion for the present location at N.E. 23rd and Lincoln, because it was closer to downtown.
“Putnam City,” of course, was never incorporated as a city, and most of the land that would have been the location of the capitol is now what we know as Warr Acres, originally a housing addition which was created nearby in 1937 by Clyde B. Warr, an Oklahoma City real estate promoter since the 1920s. He followed with Warr Acres Second Addition. In the area’s early years an interurban railway provided quick access to jobs in Oklahoma City, and a bus line launched in 1946 by Warr provided similar service. Transportation promoted growth that accelerated in the post-World War II era.
By the 1940s many housing developments had been planted in the western part of Oklahoma County. The impetus for incorporation came in January 1948 when Bethany’s city council voted to annex Ferguson Park, Smythe Place, and part of Warr Acres. Therefore, in February residents of eight other additions, including Putnam City, joined the three in petitioning to incorporate. The county commission allowed it. Of the approximately 2,000 area residents, 857 voted for the merger (40 voted against). Bethany filed suit, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court upheld the Warr Acres incorporation. The name Warr Acres remained, because the community had earlier been given that postal designation.
Now, for the part most don’t know:
This past two weeks, one of the buildings in Putnam’s would-be capitol complex, known for decades as the Putnam City Schools maintenance building, located near N.W. 39th and State, has been undergoing demolition. When Putnam began to develop this complex, he installed subterranean tunnels throughout the small area, rumored to be wide enough through which to run a train or trolley. The idea was that the buildings in the capitol complex could be accessed through the tunnels.
I have no idea how extensive the tunnels originally were, but I know that in the past three decades there was a section of tunnel that ran at least from under the elementary school, (Arbor Grove Elementary) which was formerly located between Macarthur and about Wall St on N.W. 40th, to the Maintenance building at N.W. 39th and State, and under N.W. 39th Street to at least the back lot of what was formerly Cable Mitsubishi, directly south of the Maintenance building. There was originally an entrance to the tunnel both under the elementary school, as well as the maintenance building, and another in the back lot of the auto dealership south of N.W. 39th.
When the elementary school demolition was completed by October of 2014, the entrance to the tunnel was sealed. I’d heard rumors for years that the entrance under the Maintenance building had also been sealed. Warr Acres Fire Department personnel reportedly conducted training in and around the tunnel before it sealing. I’ve had conversations with a Warr Acres Fire Captain who confirmed he’d been down into the tunnels, which he described as being built of brick and easily wide and large enough to drive a car through. He said one tunnel went north and crossed under N.W. 42nd street, another went south under N.W. 39th, but that section was sealed and “filled in” when he was in the tunnels. He further said that his father, the former Fire Chief, told him that the tunnel that crossed under N.W. 39th (Which the Fire Captain had been in) at about Grove, and that it had another point of entry behind what is now 39th Street Pawn, and further, that at one point, that tunnel had caved in at N.W. 39th Street, causing construction crews to have to fill the tunnel in to repair N.W. 39th Expressway. The Fire Captain was unaware, or unable to confirm the other tunnel at the Maintenance building, or the entrance in the auto sales lot.
When I learned about the impending demolition of the Maintenance building, I knew that time was short to have any chance at all at seeing the tunnel before it was sealed forever, and made attempts to secure permission to enter the building and check out the stories of the tunnel entrance, but I did not get my chance until literally DAYS before the proverbial “wrecking ball.” (More literally, a Cat Excavator) The rumors I’d heard over the past 30 or so years were that the building had a basement, and the tunnel entrance had been there. In searching the building, I was disappointed to find a hatch on the ground level, which I’d describe as similar to a hinged hatch one would normally find to a cellar on the outside of a house, inside the building… after lifting the hatch, I found that the opening underneath looked as if it had been filled with concrete… thus, making the word I’d heard of that entrance being sealed all the more credible.
Sadly, only the day before, I’d found that the entrance hatch in the back lot of the auto dealership, which I’d found hasped and padlocked shut in previous years, no longer had the lock on it, but, alas, heaving the heavy metal hatch had revealed even more bitter disappointment: the shaft descending to the tunnel was filled to within approximately two feet of the surface with green, murky water!
I find it sad that this building is being destroyed after standing for about 100 years. I don’t have an exact date of the building’s completion, and would welcome any further information on the building from anyone here, or more information on the tunnels themselves, as well as any further documentation, or even oral tradition about the tunnels themselves, as I have been unable to find any such documentation.
I have learned that Putnam City Schools have issued a 100 year book on the school district, and that most of the metropolitan libraries have copies. I will endeavor to check one of those books to see if I can find any vintage photos of the Maintenance building, or any other documentation of the tunnels.
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Originally Posted by rezman
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