Original subtitles

[narrator] A run down nature park

full of strange secrets.

[Shawn] Some find it creepy and spooky at night.

Me, I love the dark. It doesn't bother me.

I'm the boogie man out here.

[laughs]

[narrator] Forgotten machines that were so advanced,

their technology is still classified.

[Ron] It were supposed to be top secret.

It were supposed to be locked up.

It wasn't.

[narrator] And a towering skyscraper

that oversaw the rise and fall of a city.

This building was the heartbeat of Memphis.

[narrator] Scattered across the Unites States

are abandoned structures

and those who know their stories.

These forgotten ruins

reveal the past of this land

and its people.

These are the secrets of hidden America.

Hidden in the forests of upstate New York,

lies a pioneering place

that connected people with nature

for better or for worse.

[Shawn] Growing up here was kind of desolate.

Kind of barren.

It's wild.

It's primitive.

And in the end, it's very peaceful.

[Sascha] The Catskills are now this vacation hotspot

but they're also a place

shrouded in history and legends.

[Kyle] In the summer months, it's a jungle here.

But in the winter, it's freezing cold and frigid.

This change in weather over the year

just chews up any building that isn't maintained.

[Kenya] This place looks like a tourist attraction

that time has forgotten.

It's always extra creepy

to go to abandoned places

where you know that people had lots of fun.

[Shawn] This was my Disney World growing up.

Coming down here was like, you know, everything.

Everything, back in the day.

[Kyle] Through the trees,

a number of distinct structures stand out.

Peeking out of the forest,

there are hints of what this place used to be.

There are enclosures, cages,

a small amphitheater.

Makes me think that it was a zoo of some sort.

[narrator] But this venue of entertainment

harbored a dark secret.

[Sascha] This place must have been shut down for a reason.

But why was it preserved like this?

Kept in a state of suspended abandonment?

[Kenya] Some find it creepy here at night.

But walking around at night here

is a whole another experience.

A fun experience.

[soft music playing]

[narrator] Shawn Johnson has been coming here since he was a child.

He's now in charge of keeping the memory of this place alive.

[Shawn] I first came here in 1977.

Me and my two sisters.

Totally amazed, blown away.

It was something new round of the corner.

New experience, new smell, new wonder, new animal.

Magical.

[narrator] Covering 100 acres,

this is the oldest private zoo in America.

This is the Catskill Game Farm.

[Sascha] The Catskills have always been

a vacation destination for rich New Yorkers.

This place began as a hobby

in the 1930s

for a New York Banker named Roland Lindemann.

[Kenya] He filled it with varieties of deer

which he raised to be hunted

or sold to other farms.

[narrator] But the game farm soon drew attention

because of it's ideal location.

Back in the day, this was a very very very popular tourist area

due to the mountains, the scenery.

The big people from the city for the summers

would be here all summer long.

[narrator] The increased affordability of automobiles in the 1940s

led to a boom

in middle-class vacationers coming to the Catskills.

Lindemann soon realized

he would have an even more lucrative business

if he created a petting zoo

with the offspring of his game animals.

[Kenya] Children during the post-war baby boom

loved the Catskill Game Farm,

because they could feed baby animals.

By 1950,

nearly 200,000 visitors

were visiting the game farm yearly.

And they had almost a 1000 animals which could be seen.

[narrator] The game farm was officially recognized

as a zoological park

by the Department of Agriculture in 1958

making Roland Lindemann the first private zoo owner in the nation.

[Shawn] I grew passion in conservation

and restoration to the wild

and expanding people's experiences with different species.

Some of the real exotic species they had here

was the white rhino.

That was my favorite animal as a kid.

To me, it was like a dinosaur.

The skin colors, the horn, the whole nine.

To me it was just like a unicorn.

Roland Lindemann was born in Germany,

and hired a fellow German George Heck

to be the game farm's zoological director.

But Heck's family had a dark history.

[Kyle] George Heck's father, Lutz Heck,

was director of the Berlin Zoological Garden.

He was also a hunting partner with Hermann Goring,

which made him essentially the Chief Zoological Officer

for the Nazi party.

[narrator] Lutz Heck put his knowledge to good use

as the Nazis invaded Poland

in September 1939.

[Sascha] At the beginning of the war,

Poland fell to a Nazi Blitzkrieg in five weeks.

Lutz Heck would be a key figure

in the plundering of Warsaw Zoo,

convincing the authorities that he would protect the animals.

Nazis' attitudes towards these rare species

was the same as it was toward art.

They would loot these animals and send them back to Germany.

[narrator] But that was not the limit

of Hitler's plans for the wild creatures of Europe.

He wanted to bring a species back from the dead

with Lutz Heck leading the charge.

In upstate New York,

the Catskill Game Farm became

the largest private zoo in the United States.

Yet it had an unexpected Nazi connection

through its zoological director.

George Heck's father, Lutz, was tasked with

undertaking one of Hitler's more unusual plans

before World War II.

[Kenya] Lutz Heck was also key to trying to resurrect

the European aurochs.

A wild oxen that had gone extinct

and was at one time

a symbol of the German people.

[Sascha] The aurochs program

was kind of a pet project of Adolf Hitler's.

The idea was that he would repopulate

the conquered areas of Poland and the Soviet Union

with this giant ox

that was somehow symbolically representative of the German people.

A kind of zoological lebensraum.

But the whole breeding program was a failure.

[narrator] George Heck inherited a fascination for zoology from his father.

But fortunately, it led him down

a more legitimate path at the Catskill Game Farm.

His partnership with Roland Lindemann

proved to be a success

as they imported a number of unique near extinct species.

[Kyle] At its height, the zoo was attracting

nearly half a million visitors annually.

But by the end of the 20th century,

it's fortunes were in steep decline.

[Kenya] As of many attractions in the Catskills,

the '70s and '80s and the promise of cheap air fare

led to a decline of the game farm.

It's easier to fly to the Bahamas

than it'd be coming driving two hours north

to go to a zoo.

But you know what, the resorts closed down one by one.

It was out of work.

I mean to me, it was really bad.

[narrator] To keep the zoo open,

Roland Lindemann continued to rely

on the original purpose of the game farm.

[Kyle] Unfortunately, many of these animals

were sent to private ranches for canned hunts.

A canned hunt is essentially a situation

where wealthy high-rollers seek out the opportunity

to kill game animals

who probably were raised in tame environments

and set into enclosed areas

for these hunters to get their kill easily.

[Kenya] This was the dark side to the park.

The animals that were fed by children for years,

were ultimately sold to hunting ranches

when they got too big to be petted.

[Sascha] Although hunting is a very popular national pastime,

this particular type,

canned hunting, is of questionable legality

and 20 states have laws limiting it or banning it altogether.

[narrator] But these sales were not enough to save the park,

and eventually, it's assets and animals were auctioned off.

[Sascha] On the day of the auction,

people showed up from all over the country

to bid on the remaining animals.

And amongst them

were operators of canned hunts

but also animal rights activists.

[Kyle] Fortunately, there was a coordinated effort

on the part of the conservationists

to buy as many animals as possible.

They were successful and they even saved

two white rhinos from canned hunts.

[narrator] After over 70 years of operation,

the Catskill Game Farm closed in 2006.

Almost 20 years after its closure,

some animals have returned.

[Shawn] They're my babies. Make me happy.

Make me feel complete.

[narrator] Tourism has also returned to these mountains.

And the game farm's new owners

are in the process of updating some of the buildings.

[Kyle] The old giraffe house has been turned into a hotel,

aptly named The Long Neck Inn

for tourists to come and experience some nostalgia.

I wake up every day picture myself that I'm in a dream.

That I'm actually running the Catskill Game Farm.

To me, it's a privilege.

I love it. Absolutely love it.

[narrator] Tucked away in Central Colorado

are the classified remains of a revolutionary government program.

[Corina] It's a rather non-descript block

on the edge of Pueblo.

We're near some railroad tracks.

[Sascha] At first, it looks like storage yard,

or maybe a parking lot.

But then, behind the fencing, you notice these vast white objects.

[Jim] Each one is different, but they are all

long airplane-like structures,

streamlined, but with no wings.

[narrator] These vehicles

are a version of an American future

that never quite came to fruition.

[Sascha] It's like being in one of those

1970s sci-fi movies

that tries to show you what the future will look like.

[Corina] It's not obvious how they work

or what they were used for.

But what's very clear,

is that they were extremely powerful.

Printed on the side in bold letters are the words...

[narrator] A phone call to a government official

revealed that one machine

is still a closely guarded state secret.

[Ron] And he says, how do you know about that?

I say, I'm standing, looking at it.

I send him a picture.

And his first word was [bleep].

[narrator] These machines originally lived

at a secretive government testing facility,

less than 30 miles away.

[Ron] It's kind of like a little Area 51 out there.

You can't drive up to it. They 'll get you.

[narrator] Ron Roach,

a former U.S. Navy Submariner

knew that acquiring these unique vehicles

would be a major coup.

[Ron] Lot of people in a private organization here tried to get these.

And they wouldn't let them go.

I went out there

being military, ex-military myself

and they're all ex-military out there.

And we got our heads together.

[narrator] From 2008, a Pueblo-based foundation

officially took ownership of these innovative vehicles.

They represent an era when American transport

was at a crossroads.

[Corina] We can point to the '60s as the decade

where Americans really fell in love with the car.

[Sascha] The government was deeply concerned

about the potential for a country-wide gridlock.

And they felt that another mode of transportation

was desperately needed.

[Jim] In 1965, Congress passed

the High-Speed Ground Transportation Act.

When President Johnson announced the act, he said,

"Today, an astronaut can orbit the earth

in less time than it takes a man to travel on the ground

from New York to Washington D.C."

[narrator] Other countries however,

were taking impressive strides forward.

[Sascha] At the same time the Japanese were unveiling their new

130 mile per hour bullet train.

France, meanwhile, was pushing ahead

with their futuristic aero-train

which was being tested on tracks just outside of Paris.

Built to achieve a nominal cruising speed

of just over a 100 miles an hour,

the aero-train achieved nearly double that speed on test run.

[Sascha] The world was racing ahead at breakneck speed.

The U.S. had to catch up and it had to do it quickly.

[narrator] Military contractors submitted ambitious plans,

and these three vehicles

emerged as America's leading candidates.

And the world was watching

to see if they would change the course of history.

On the edge of Pueblo, Colorado's downtown,

lie three forgotten machines.

They are known as the rocket cars.

America's answer to the global transportation technology race.

The first prototype to be tested

was called The Garrett.

[Ron] This one was used to see how fast

you could run on rail.

It's all it was doing.

How fast it could run on rail.

[Sascha] They used a 3000 horsepower turbine

from a crashed NASA airplane

to give it all the power it needed.

[Corina] The Garrett set the world speed record

for an air-powered wheel-on-rail vehicle

at 255 miles per hour.

It is still holding this record today.

[Jim] That must have been exciting and honestly, terrifying

for the crew that did these experiments.

There's one red button that always tripped us out.

It says "Know Psalms 23."

[Jim] It's the stop button.

I think the message is,

if you try to stop this thing when it's going top speed,

you better start praying.

[narrator] But the Garrett was unfortunately

an accident waiting to happen.

The TGV and the bullet train, they tilt.

That's what keeps them on the tracks.

This one couldn't do that.

So there's a big chance this come off the tracks.

Oh, yeah.

I'd hate to see that thing come off the tracks

at that speed.

[narrator] To revolutionize train travel,

American engineers decided

they were going to have to move away

from traditional railroad tracks.

In 1972, the office of high-speed ground transportation

began testing a brand new train technology.

[Corina] The idea of the hovertrain

came from the hovercraft's concept.

If you could do that over water,

why not over tracks?

[Ron] This is the Grumman.

It's called a track-levitated research vehicle.

It ran in channel of concrete like this.

These big rubber pads here kept it off the sides of the concrete,

and the ones on the bottom lifted it up.

[Corina] So the Grumman got it's levitation power

from three huge turbofan engines on top.

It would suck in air and then expel it underneath.

[Ron] When they first started to run this thing,

they thought it was a bird.

It tried to fly. It came about six feet up off the ground.

[narrator] To this day, mystery surrounds this vehicle

and information on it, is still classified.

[Corina] There's so much we don't know about the Grumman.

This makes you think, what did they learn developing it?

[narrator] The secretive nature of this train

makes sense when you realize the resemblance it has

to one of the most famous vehicle of all time.

[Ron] We were told by man that was in the Smithsonian

that they wanted to use this for

aerodynamic testing for the space shuttle.

It looks just like the shuttle.

[narrator] But much of it's operational history

remains a national secret.

[Ron] To this day, we've been unable

to get test results on this thing.

[narrator] But just before the Department of transportation

pulled the plug on the whole program,

one more radical machine was tested.

The Roar Aerotrain.

[Ron] These two big holes here are air intakes.

If you were standing there about 50 feet away,

and they fired this thing up.

It would pull you hat off of you and it'd go through the fans.

[Corina] It was another hovertrain,

but this one ran on a monorail.

[Sascha] Stepping inside the train really gets the imagination working.

It's like stepping into the past

and the future at the same time.

[Ron] I used to enjoy coming up here and just sit down to look at it

and just dream what it was to operate this thing.

One thing so distinctive about this train is,

it didn't have a traditional cockpit

for the engineer to look out of.

He would rely on the video screens.

[narrator] In 1975,

the government strategy shifted away from high-speed rail

and the whole program was shut down.

[Sascha] The forecast of nationwide gridlock

never really materialized.

Mostly because larger, cheaper airfare

became possible across the nation.

[Jim] By the late '70s, everybody was flying in jets,

and the cost was really quite competitive,

even with old slow rail.

An Amtrak ticket and plane ticket

were often roughly the same price.

[Corina] This was a pivotal moment in American history.

A time when the country could have had a very different future

for transport.

[Ron] Like everything that... everybody's dreams,

that kind of got shattered.

And they ended.

And this is where the dream sits right now.

[narrator] Ron proudly remembers

the day these unique trains arrived

having taken a long journey from the nearby testing facility.

These are very hard to move.

The one that we're sitting in right now

was moved on house-moving dollies.

And it took them two and a half hours to go eight miles.

I worked hard on painting them,

and then to see them finally here,

I sat back and just went, ah...

They're here!

Being one of a kind, that makes them very special.

[narrator] The rocket cars have now sat dormant for decades.

But their former home, the high-security test center,

is still in operation.

[Corina] All that security and secretiveness,

it really makes you wonder,

what are they doing out there?

Maybe some new improved rocket cars are just around the corner.

[narrator] Near the mid-point of the Mississippi River,

there's building that reaches towards the skies.

It was built to reflect hope,

but came crashing down during a moment of national tragedy.

[Meagan] It's incredible to be up here.

There's no words. This building is, it's iconic.

Knowing who has been up here,

you feel part of history.

[Michele] We're in Memphis, Tennessee,

home of the blues and the birthplace of rock n' roll.

[narrator] Among the bustle of downtown,

a derelict 37-storey tower dominates the skyline.

This place is huge, it's the tallest building around.

You would think it would be bubbling over with

excitement and activities, but yet, it's derelict.

This building has a very eerie feel to it.

Floor after floor of damaged furniture

and paper strewn about.

It's as if one day, all of a sudden,

everyone just decided to up and leave.

Why in the world has it been abandoned?

[narrator] Above all the empty floors,

sits something unexpected.

What is that on the roof? It looks like a UFO

has landed right on top of the building.

[narrator] While the pinnacle was a spot for the city's mover and shakers,

the building offered something that Memphis had never seen before.

In it's heyday, this building was the shining gem of Memphis.

The stars came from all over.

[Michele] This building represents the golden age

of both America and capitalism.

But it was brought down by one of America's darkest days.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] This 37 story building is the tallest in Memphis.

Lennard James took a job here as a college student.

When I first started working here, I was 24.

It was an exciting time, living in Memphis.

And I was very happy to get the job here.

We were the talk of the town.

[narrator] This tower was designed to cash in

on a feel good factor spreading across the city.

[Philip] In the 1960s, Memphis was becoming the center

of culture and music

and people actually wanted to relocate there.

[Michele] Local businessman Harry Bloomfield had a dream.

He wanted to build a place where all these fine minds,

lawyers, architects, engineers, accountants,

could work together under one roof

and make Memphis a Metropolitan titan.

[narrator] This is 100 North Main.

Construction began here on June the 30th, 1963.

[Sascha] Harry Bloomfield had his 13-year-old son

break ground here with a gold-plated shovel.

We can only imagine that this was

a sign of this vision that he had

of the building in the city's future.

[narrator] By the time the building opened

in 1965,

it was already 50% occupied.

Yet the real jewel of 100 North Main

wasn't within its walls.

It's something lifelong Memphis resident Megan May

has seen many times from the streets below.

So this is the pinnacle of this building.

This is the revolving restaurant.

It would make a full 360 degree rotation

every 90 minutes.

[Lennard] I was the head bartender.

I liked the atmosphere, going up the escalators,

and knowing you were gonna be at the top of the world in Memphis

when you get up there.

[narrator] This restaurant may have offered unbeatable views.

But the staff needed more

than just a tolerance for heights.

[Lennard] There were challenges working at the restaurant.

The key thing was,

when you came out the serving door from the kitchen,

the floor is moving.

So you had to step out like you were ready to

jump on a treadmill.

You gotta be walking.

Or you're gonna drop everything.

[narrator] Fortunately, the threat of broken dishes

didn't keep the customers away,

as this restaurant was part of a craze

spreading across America.

[Philip] In the 1960s, revolving restaurants

were the "new big thing."

[Michele] They originated in Germany,

but they hit America just three years later

in 1962 when the Space Needle opened in Seattle.

[narrator] These sky high restaurants

were designed to reflect the new age.

[Sascha] This was the dawn of the space age.

And it wasn't just politicians who were gripped

by this new frontier.

[Michele] Popular culture had really bought into the idea

of going into space.

And this UFO shaped restaurant really fed into this mania.

[narrator] But while space rockets were about to take

humans into orbit, for many,

this restaurant was the best view they could get

of the blue planet.

[Lennard] Everybody that's anybody in Memphis,

lawyers, doctors, judges,

they all came to the top of 100 North Main building.

[Meagan] Elvis loved this place.

I feel like I should be wearing blue suede shoes,

because I am indeed walking in footsteps of the King.

Some of the celebrities I saw

were ZZ Top,

B.B. King.

I met Hank Aaron,

Lynda Carter.

Those parties were super wow.

Free alcohol all night,

and great music, great DJs, it was a hoot.

[narrator] While the restaurant was the talk of the town,

the top four floors

offered something found nowhere else in Memphis.

So this is top of the 100 Club.

This was a very exclusive club, members only.

When you think about the deals that were made,

I think a lot of them probably happened at this table right here.

[narrator] However,

some of the members in this private club

partied too hard,

endangering the citizens of Memphis 430 feet below.

This is the Japanese garden.

But it closed because people kept throwing small rocks

off the top.

[narrator] Despite the occasional stone

plummeting to street level,

the top of the 100 Club and 100 North Main boomed.

But no one could have predicted

that just three years after opening,

the customers would be sent running.

We became the city that killed the dream.

[narrator] In Memphis, the city's tallest building

was where the movers and shakers partied.

Until an event that took place just blocks away

shook America, changing everything.

[Meagan] On April 4th, 1968

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated

at the Lorraine Motel.

He was in town in support of the sanitation strikes

that were happening all around the city.

[Sascha] There were demonstrations and riots

across the country.

But Memphis was one of the worst hit areas.

Almost overnight, the appeal of the city evaporated for many

and this once bustling downtown area

became a spot to be avoided.

[Meagan] Downtown Memphis was devastated

and this building

really, it started it's slow decline.

Over the next decades,

the revolving restaurant managed to stay open,

but revenue was down.

Downtown really wasn't a place that you went.

[narrator] With the money in short supply,

in 2001, the revolving restaurant turned

for the final time.

Yet the rest of 100 North Main limped on.

[Philip] Companies continued to leave,

and by 2012,

the occupancy rate

had fallen down to about 30%.

[Michele] Two years later, the last resident left

and the doors to Memphis' tallest building shut.

[narrator] Today, over half a century since Dr. King's assassination,

this building's shadow is becoming a symbol of optimism once more.

It's something the Mayor of Memphis, Paul Young,

is hoping will springboard new life into the city.

[Paul] Part of my campaign platform is about

remediating blight in our community.

And 100 North Main will ensure that that happens.

We're going to see this building revitalized.

[narrator] Paul's team is planning to turn 100 North Main

into commercial units,

a hotel and apartments.

[Michele] The modernization and reopening of such an iconic building

will be a tremendous development in Memphis

in terms of revitalizing the downtown.

But it's also important towards American history

given Memphis' critical place in our culture.

[narrator] Perhaps one day

Memphians will be able to eat their dinner

while admiring the same view

that Elvis enjoyed over 50 years ago.

[Paul] There will definitely be a restaurant at the top of 100 North Main.

I'm not sure if the floor will revolve.

But this building will be the go to place

for Memphians once again.

[narrator] In the Pacific Northwest,

there's a town with a dark secret.

Where fortunes were made

and livelihoods were lost.

[Phil] When I walk in the underground,

I feel a great sense of pride.

Even to this day, puts me in awe.

This was the Wild West's Sodom and Gomorrah.

[narrator] Near the heart of the city of Pendleton,

an abandoned structure hides a twisted past.

[Hadley] This is a two-story brick building.

It looks like it was a commercial building at one point.

This place has stuff everywhere.

But some of it looks a little X-rated.

[Hadley] Scribbled all over the doors are

writings and one of them says,

"The finest breasts man has ever seen

awaits your touch in room 18."

[Phil] This place sat right behind our police station.

They actually had a plank that went across over to

the windows in the back of the police station.

They probably were there

just to check on those girls

and enforce the law if I were guessing.

[narrator] Despite the shady deeds

that undoubtedly occurred within these walls,

it's what's beneath that's truly shocking.

[Hadley] Below ground, things get even darker and crazier.

When you go into the basement, there's all these tunnels.

[Michele] This is absolutely mind-blowing.

These tunnels seem spread like a labyrinth.

Who built them here?

[Brooke] If you were to walk back in these tunnels

in the 20th century,

you would go through

all different sensations and smells

from tobacco to alcohol to dirty sheep-herders

to opium.

It was a wild unruly place.

They gambled, they drank whisky,

drank beer and chased girls.

[narrator] Beneath the streets of Pendleton, Oregon,

there's a labyrinth with a secret sordid past.

It's something that Phil Garton

first heard about as a boy.

[Phil] I first started hearing about the tunnels

by the time I was eight or nine years old.

There were stories of Pendelton having a dark underbelly.

[narrator] Thirty years later,

Phil and a group of friends

decided to investigate these rumors.

They began unearthing the tunnels once more.

[Phil] When I first entered the tunnels,

they'd become full of rubble and junk

and it was so dark down there,

and it was almost eerie.

I felt a bit like Indiana Jones.

[narrator] Phil and his friends uncovered a lost world

which hadn't been witnessed for decades.

This is the Pendleton underground.

The true extent of the underground has been lost to time.

Today it's believed that the tunnels stretched

four blocks north to south

and two blocks east to west,

maybe even further.

[Phil] These tunnels were originally put in here

as freight delivery systems to the basements

of the businesses in Pendleton.

It was considered unfashionable in the old west

to take your merchandise

in the same door that your customers went in.

[narrator] But soon, events above ground

would make these tunnels and rooms

far more than just basements for storage.

[Corina] Around the turn of the 20th century,

this area was a party town.

Downtown, there were 18 brothels and 32 bars,

all within four blocks.

[Brooke] You have sheepherders, cowboys, the ranchers,

that have been up in the mountains

for a long period of time

and they need to let loose and have a little fun.

So, where better to go than Pendleton?

[narrator] While many people enjoyed the fun offered here,

a set of unwritten laws

meant others faced persecution

and even death.

Pendleton, Oregon, was the party town of the wild west.

But not everyone was invited.

In the early 20th century,

there were a lot of people of Chinese heritage

in the north-west of America.

Many of their ancestors had come over during the Gold Rush

or to work on the railroads.

[Hadley] This work put them in direct conflict with

White Americans who felt that they were stealing their jobs.

And Pendleton drew a lot of shady

fighting and drinking characters

who often directed their aggression towards the Chinese immigrants.

[Brooke] There in Pendleton, there were sundowner's laws,

unwritten laws, so that

if the Chinese were above ground after sundown,

they could be shot and killed

and man who shot them may have just been fined $5

for discharging his firearm within city limits.

Not for actually killing the person.

[narrator] With the threat of beatings and death above ground,

some of the Chinese immigrants turned to the tunnels and basements

beneath for sanctuary.

[Corina] According to local legend,

many Chinese found safety underneath the city.

And they expanded the tunnels by knocking down the walls.

There were even rumors that some Chinese people lived down there.

The Chinese used the underground in Pendleton

like you would use your house

with hallways and they moved about

rather freely underground.

[Hadley] There were businesses in the Pendleton underground.

Some of them were just extensions of businesses above ground.

But there were also some businesses that were probably

solely underground.

And one of these was

a laundry which was owned by a Chinese immigrant.

[narrator] Yet the clandestine nature of the underground

attracted some businesses

with a more nefarious purpose.

[Brooke] This is one of the opium dens in here.

And this was not only used by the Chinese,

you would have had working girls,

and cowboys come down to smoke opium.

As you can see, they've got the wood pillows on the bed

where they would lay on their sides to smoke the opium.

[narrator] For around a decade,

this unlikely underground world flourished.

However, a radical wave of change

spreading across America

would turn this place upside down.

In 1908, Pendleton and the county of Umatilla went dry.

They enacted prohibition.

[Michele] This was 12 years before Congress

enacted nationwide prohibition.

But in the decades leading up to it,

many places in America, including Pendleton

had already enacted their own alcohol bans.

[narrator] The new law forced some of the bars in Pendleton

to head underground.

Prohibition made the Pendleton underground come alive.

Suddenly, it was the place to be.

And people who would normally would have never ventured underground

were going there regularly to have a drink and have some fun.

[Phil] There were cardrooms in the underground

and a bunch of bars down there.

There was everything from beer to moonshine whisky.

I think these tunnel walls

would have seen some great parties.

[narrator] But the good times down below wouldn't last.

On the 5th of December 1933, Prohibition came to an end,

and brought with it

the decline of the Pendleton underground.

[Phil] The end of Prohibition played a big role

in the folding of the underground,

because there was really no good reason to hide underground.

You could actually go out and have a brewski

about any place you wanted to.

[Hadley] Attitudes towards Chinese immigrants slowly changed

after World War I

and so they were able to love more openly

and not have to be in hiding.

[Michele] We don't know exactly when the underground shut.

But people did stop coming down here.

And slowly but surely, the tunnels were blocked up.

[Hadley] The only time you would hear about the Pendleton underground

was maybe from an old drunk at a local bar.

[narrator] Despite almost being lost to time,

the Pendleton underground has made a comeback.

Brooke Armstrong is the director of the project.

Today, the Pendleton underground is used to give tours

throughout all the tunnels,

and to share Pendleton's history.

[narrator] While people visit from across the globe,

perhaps the Pendleton underground's biggest campaigner

lives far closer to home.

[Phil] Oh, it's very special.

It's like our legacy, because we...

We worked so hard putting it together.

I will continue to advocate for the Pendleton underground for as long as I live.