The Only One Like It in the World: Detroit-Windsor Tunnel: 1930s-2000s

Have you been over to Canada lately? If so, did you take the Detroit Windsor Tunnel?

This vital – but claustrophobic to some – link between Detroit and Windsor is approximately 1½ miles long, barreling under the Detroit River. It is the only underwater international auto tunnel in the world.

This tunnel is more of a marvel than you would think. If you’ve ever driven through Pennsylvania and taken the turnpike, undoubtedly you would have driven through the turnpike tunnels that have been bored through the mountains. When that turnpike opened in 1940 there were seven mountain tunnels, but that number has been reduced to four.

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Some of those turnpike tunnels were made from former railroad tunnels: dynamited, excavated, drilled, etc. But the Detroit/Windsor Tunnel was more meticulous.

Before the tunnel was completed in 1930, vehicles could only get back and forth by using ferry boats.

After a couple of failed beginnings, after the Grand Trunk Railroad Tunnel was built under the St. Clair River in Port Huron in 1891, Detroit businessmen complained that their goods would be shipped from Port Huron instead of Detroit. They wanted their own tunnel for Detroit.

To make a long story – which includes much bickering, threats, and politics – short, construction on the tunnel began in 1928 and ended in 1930. This was during the time when the Ambassador Bridge was being built, so yeah, there was kind of a race going on to see who would finish first. The bridge won, but travelers seem to prefer the tunnel.

Touted as “the most spectacular of all tunnel operations” the Detroit News described the construction as “the sinking of steel tubes in the trench dug across the bottom of the river (and have) a diameter of 31 feet, composed of 3/8″-thick steel plate reinforced at 12-foot intervals by octagonal diaphragms which also provide the form for an exterior concrete jacket.”

FACTS:
Fresh air is blown into the tunnel with huge fans and stale air is removed by ducts above the ceiling.

President Herbert Hoover got the ball rolling on dedication day by pushing a gold button in the White House that started bells ringing on both sides of the tunnel.

The first driver through the tunnel was Joseph Zuccatto, a tunnel construction worker, who drove his cement truck under the river to Windsor and back again. Beer, champagne, and fried chicken marked the celebration.

It opened for full traffic on November 3, 1930, with the first car being a 1929 Studebaker.

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