Notion of tunnel under Divide predates reality by 100­plus years

The unpretentious beginning of what was t become the Eisenhower/Johnson was only hinted at by the East pioneer bore shaft in October 1963 was almost buried in the snow of January 1965.

Part 1

By Kathy Jordan

When the Eisenhower Tunnel was finally opened to traffic in March of 1973 it marked the completion of an important link in the Interstate 70 system that had been approved by Congress in 1956. The idea of putting a tunnel for automobile traffic under the Divide to connect the western and eastern slopes goes back much further than Interstate 70 and the Eisenhower Tunnel.

In 1867 W.A.H. Loveland, who held the railroad charter, came up with the idea of Sanderson’s Pass as a wagon road route over the divide and talked of the possibility of driving a tunnel through the mountain. It was a good idea but didn’t come to pass.

That didn’t stop Loveland. In 1869 he pushed for, and got, an overland wagon road that connected Denver and Leadville. The road became known as the Loveland Pass.

The road was abandoned in 1906, but in 1920 the road was restored for use by the U.S. Forest Service as a route for automobiles to go over the pass.

In 1927, the newly­formed Colorado Highway Department began work on a better road over the pass, and in 1932 the new road was opened.

In 1973, Charles Shumate, director of the Colorado Highway Department, told a Daily Sentinel reporter in 1973 that in the 1930’s he was visiting the state capital area in Denver and witnessed “50 to 75 cars going round and round the capitol building honking their horns and with signs saying ‘The Western Slope Needs to Tunnel Under the Continental Divide.’ ”

Until Vail Pass was completed as a Works Progress Administration project in the late1930s, people drove through Salida and Pueblo to get to Denver from the Western Slope.

By 1941 the push was on again for a tunnel under the divide and the first pioneer bore in the area where the tunnel was finally built was completed in 1943. However, after long sections of fractured rock were found the project was put on hold.

In 1947 the project was put out for bid again. Only one bid was received for $10 million. It was subsequently put out for a second bid, but none was received, and the project was mothballed.

In 1953 the Colorado Highway Department hired two New York City engineering firms to do a report at the request of the Colorado General Assembly on the costs and benefits of a Continental Divide tunnel.

Possible routes were: Straight Creek, Vasquez Pass, Berthoud Pass, Loveland Pass, Jones Pass and Devil’s Thumb Pass. The two firms reported that the Straight Creek­Clear Creek Tunnel would be the least difficult and expensive.

A $60,050 contract was awarded in August of 1955 for rotary core drilling of test holes in both Straight Creek and Vasquez Pass.

In 1956, when bids were taken, Colorado Tunnel Constructors of Denver submitted the low bid of $7,596,835. But nothing was done, and the bid expired, putting the tunnel project on hold again.

It took the maneuvering of three powerful Colorado citizens, U.S. Rep. Wayne Aspinall, U.S. Sen. Edwin C. Johnson and Gov. Dan Thornton to get the 547 miles between Denver and Cove Fort, Utah, added to the original interstate system in October 1957. The most important argument for a tunnel under the divide came in the way of a study done by Lionel Pavlo Engineering Co., of New York City in 1959 at the request of the Colorado Highway Department to determine the best interstate route between Dotsero and Empire Junction.

The study concluded that an overland route across the Continental Divide which would meet the interstate highway standards could not be established without a tunnel under the Divide. Such a tunnel through the Divide from Straight Creek Valley to Loveland Basin would be best, according to the study.

However, Pavlo went far wrong on the cost estimate, saying two one­way tunnels could be drilled for $28,792,000.

Before the pioneer drilling started the CHD was working with the U.S. Geological Survey and other geologists and mining engineers making exhaustive geological and geophysical studies in 1962.

The pioneer bore shaft, 7­by­7­foot, 8,400­foot­long, was started in October of 1963. The entire bore, which was a little more than 1.5 miles, was done from the east side.

The job, which was bid at $1,291,920, soon started going over budget when the mountain started moving. There was so much pressure from the moving earth on the wooden supports that they were quickly being reduced to piles of toothpicks and had to be replaced steel supports. The final cost of the bore shaft when completed in December of 1964 was $1,421,837.

More than three years later the Straight Creek Constructors began what Charles Shumate, director of the Colorado Highway Department classified as “the most difficult feat every undertaken by the Colorado Highway Department.”

Next week the tunnel construction