The Chicago flood occurred on April 13, 1992, when repair work on a bridge spanning the Chicago River damaged the wall of an abandoned and disused utility tunnel beneath the river. The resulting breach flooded basements, facilities and the underground Chicago Pedway throughout the Chicago Loop with an estimated 250 million US gallons (1,000,000 m3) of water.
The remediation lasted for weeks, and cost about $2 billion in 1992 dollars, equivalent to $4.34 billion in 2023. The legal battles lasted for several years, and disagreement over who was at fault persists to this day.
Kinzie Street Bridge
The Chicago Tunnel Company was the builder and operator of a 2 ft narrow-gauge railway freight tunnel network under downtown Chicago, Illinois. This was regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission as an interurban even though it operated entirely under central Chicago, did not carry passengers, and was entirely underground. It inspired the construction of the London Post Office Railway.
Under the streets of Chicago, pre-1906
Tunnel under construction in 1902. The freshly cut clay ahead of the concrete work shows clear knife marks.
Trackwork in a typical grand union where two tunnels intersected, photographed before 1906
Two Morgan Locomotives posed for a publicity photo in 1904 at State and Randolph. Superintendent George W. Jackson is at the controls on the left.
