Youngstown, O. - My cousin Chris was telling me about this tunnel on the West Side that went under Midwest Steel & Alloy from Salt Springs so we decided to check it out. When I went to his house in the Steelton neighborhood he crawled out the coal chute to greet me. Photos below. We walked down to the mouth of the tunnel with my new $600 camera and started into the tunnel. At first the water was ankle or knee deep but towards the end it was up to our nipples.
Before the company above was Midwest Steel it was Carnegie Illinois Steel's skull cracker yard. I wonder if this tunnel was built by ol Andy Carnegie; it certainly looked like old enough construction to be the case.
At the other end of the tunnel was the Mahoning River, where we skipped rocks with the former Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.'s Brier Hill works in the background. We then climbed up the steep bank to check out the long abandoned pump house that was on the scrapyard's property. I can't seem to find those photos but it was very interesting also, take my word for it. We walked down to Cherol's market from there, like so many USS employees before us, bought a couple Stewart's lime pops and officially called the start of summer.
