All language subtitles for Mysteries.of.the.Abandoned.Hidden.America.S04E06.1080p.WEB.h264-FREQUENCY_track3_[eng]

[narrator] Relics of
a forsaken industrial town.

In four milliseconds,
their atomic dream became

an atomic nightmare.

[narrator]
A forgotten settlement, which
prospered despite prejudice.

[Maisa] It's a story that just
has not been told.

I consider it
hallowed ground.

[narrator] And the subterranean
chambers that

built the nation's monuments.

[Rodriguez McRobbie]
Without this place, New York

and Washington would look
radically different today.

[narrator]
In eastern Idaho, a town
neighbors a restricted facility

which brought humanity into
a new age.

Most of what they did out there
was pretty hush-hush.

We never really knew
what was going on.

[Dr. Kwami]
We're in Idaho's Snake River
Plains this whole area has

a very eerie feel with
the backdrop of a desert.

[narrator]
Crumbling structures sit
abandoned along

a desolate road.

[Dr. Szulgit]
There are a few buildings that
seem to be lived in,

but mostly the place has just
fallen to decay.

[Dr. Thomas]
I see what looks like
an abandoned bar, so this place

had the trappings of a lively
spot at some point,

but something made
the people abandon it.

[Liza]
We say, "You can learn more
from failure than you do from

success," and we learned
a tremendous amount

that terrible night.

[narrator]
In Bingham County, Idaho,
sits the remains of a town

built on the promise of
a bright future

that never came to be.

Terry Fackrell's grandfather
established his community in

southeastern Idaho
over 100 years ago.

[Terry] This used to be the main
highway between

Blackfoot and Arco.

Grandfather figured that people
would travel through,

and he'd have an opportunity
to sell them some supplies.

[narrator]
The town became known as
Midway, and it would faithfully

serve drivers for decades,
until a historic event across

the world would
change its destiny.

On December 19, 1938,
German scientists discovered

the process of splitting
an atom, nuclear fission.

[Dr. Szulgit]
While the discovery of fission
would have been largely known

just to scientists, it took
the bombing of Hiroshima to

awaken the whole world to
the possible power that

could be harnessed.

[Dr. Auerbach]
From this devastation arose
a more positive question.

What could we achieve
with the power of the atom

if we harnessed it peacefully
for the betterment of people,

rather than for the purposes
of destruction?

In 1946, President Truman
signed the Atomic Energy Act.

What has been done is
the greatest achievement of

organized science in history.

And what this act did was it
transferred nuclear power from

military use to civilian hands.

[narrator]
The government-run United
States Atomic Energy Commission

made plans to build a facility
where potentially dangerous

nuclear technologies could be
developed and tested

away from prying eyes.

An 890-square-mile site
was chosen in Idaho,

just a few miles up the road
from Midway.

My grandfather decided that to
change the name

would attract people and people
to move into the community.

[narrator] This is Atomic City.

Atomic fever had taken
the world by storm and this

town was determined
to be part of it.

[Dr. Szulgit]
The town pinned all
of its hopes on this great dream

of nuclear power and the lab
expanding and having all

these brainiacs come.

[narrator]
The government's National
Reactor Testing Station

opened in 1949.

Liza Raley has made it
her mission to educate people

on the history of this
groundbreaking facility.

What you have to imagine at
the beginning of nuclear is

every time you had an idea for
a different kind of reactor,

you had to build it
to see if it would work.

There wasn't computer modeling,
and this was the facility where

they could do that.

[narrator]
The first reactor built here
tested whether atomic fission

could generate electricity.

Completed in 1951, this is
the Experimental Breeder
Reactor,

also known as EBR-1.

What EBR-1 did is show
the world what is possible.

We came out here, built
this facility.

By December 21st,
they made enough power to light

the entire building.

[narrator] Although still in its
infancy, nuclear energy had

become a reality,
and the possibilities

seemed endless.

Nuclear power just captured
the 1950s imagination
of America.

This is when, in comic books,
you would see nuclear-powered

jet packs and cars flying up
through the air.

[Dr. Kwami]
Research was done into nuclear
medicine, irradiated crops,

nuclear-powered cars,
and even satellites.

[narrator] The military also saw
unlimited possibilities

in this emerging technology.

[Liza]
At the height of the Cold War,
somebody told the United States

that the Soviet Union had
a nuclear-powered airplane,

and it was ready to circle
the Arctic Circle and bomb

an American city at
a moment's notice.

And so in perfect American
style, we said,

"We should get one of those."

[narrator]
Here in Idaho, the US Air Force
took over a section of

the National Reactor
Testing Station,

where they experimented with
engine prototypes to achieve

this Cold War dream.

[Dr. Szulgit]
Ultimately, the project failed,
because to have a nuclear

engine, you had to have
shielding to

protect the pilots.

And the bigger the engine,
the heavier the shielding,

the whole thing was just
too weighty.

It was never really
gonna take off.

[Liza]
President Kennedy shut down
the program in 1961 and wasted

a billion dollars, billion with
a "B" dollars, in 1950s money on

this program that never came
to fruition.

[narrator] Although some
projects here did fail, overall,

the testing station was a huge
success and continued to

prove its potential.

In July of 1955, one of
the site's other reactors

produced enough electricity to
light the entire city of Arco.

[Liza] In August 1955,
scientists and researchers

attended the Atoms for Peace
conference in Geneva,

Switzerland, and they were able
to stand up and say,

for the first time
in the history of the world,

we have lit an entire American
city with atomic power.

[narrator]
But in neighboring Atomic City,

things didn't exactly take off
as intended.

[Liza] Once you drove off of
the federal lands,

it had the first bar.

And so people would stop in
Atomic City and have a couple

of beers before they went home.

But Atomic City never really
turned into the home for

nuclear researchers and nuclear
engineers that it had
hoped to be.

[narrator]
Faced with a stagnating
population, Atomic City's

school moved out of town.

Moving the school started to
change the population

of the town.

Families then had to drive
further, so the population

slowly started to dwindle.

[narrator]
But soon, a catastrophic event
at the nuclear reactor testing

station SL-1 experimental
reactor would send shock waves,

not just through Atomic City,
but around the whole world.

[Liza] There were three nuclear
operators working in

the facility on January 3rd,
1961, and they were there to

turn the reactor on after it
had been shut down for

the Christmas holidays.

[Dr. Kwami]
One procedure required one of
the control rods to be pulled

manually about a couple inches
in order to connect it to

its drive mechanism.

[Dr. Szulgit] One of the workers
lifted the rod up too far,

so the reactor went super
critical in a matter of

four milliseconds,
vaporizing the entirety of

the coolant water and creating
this huge steam explosion.

[narrator]
When the emergency team arrived
at the scene, they were met

with a devastating sight.

This day would change
the industry forever.

[narrator]
In southeastern Idaho,
on the edge of Atomic City,

a sprawling government facility
transformed the future of

atomic energy.

But it was also the site of one
of the nuclear industry's

darkest days, when the SL-1
reactor went prompt-critical,

and produced a huge
steam explosion.

[Dr. Auerbach] Two men
were killed instantly.

One of them was thrown by
the explosion onto concrete

blocks that broke his ribs,
which pierced his heart.

[Dr. Kwami]
And the other was launched into
the air by an ejecting rod

and impaled
against the ceiling.

[Dr. Auerbach]
The third man was still moving
when the emergency response

teams arrived, but he died
a few hours later.

[narrator]
The bodies of the victims were
highly radioactive.

[Dr. Kwami] The men had to be
buried in lead coffins

under a foot of concrete.

[narrator] Atomic City was just
a few miles from where

the explosion occurred.

When I was 11 years old was
when the reactor blew up.

The government brought out
a trailer and placed it here in

town to measure radioactivity,
to determine if we were going

to be exposed, and it was here
for over a year,

and we were never warned that
there was any high radiation.

To our knowledge, there wasn't
any here in this community.

[narrator]
This dark day would go down in
history as the only fatal

nuclear reactor
accident on US soil,

but it would transform
safety measures

in the industry.

[Liza]
We learned a lot from that
failure and some of the safety

conditions that are in place
today from things that

we learned on that
January 3, 1961.

[narrator]
In the following years,
more reactors were built

and tested at the National
Reactor Testing Station.

But soon, one of the most
significant events of

the 20th century would
change everything.

The Cold War ended,
and nuclear energy seemed to

fall out of favor in many ways.

It seemed like
a relic of the past.

In 1993,
the Clinton administration shut

down the Nuclear Power
Research Program.

[narrator]
Over the next few years,
operations slowed down at

the testing station,
and its workforce

shrunk significantly.

Meanwhile, in Atomic City,
the population dwindled to just

a handful of people,
and many buildings

were abandoned.

[narrator]
Today, only about 20 people
live in Atomic City,

but one bar remains open,
and a raceway brings crowds on

summer weekends.

Meanwhile, the EBR-1 building
has been turned into a museum,

and the testing station is now
known as

the Idaho National Laboratory.

[Liza] The focus of the lab
right now is clean energy,

and it's a very exciting time.

We went from a skeleton crew to
now having over 6,000 employees

at Idaho National Lab.

[narrator]
In the Bluegrass State is
a site where one colonel's

crusade transformed
an industry, creating

a global phenomenon.

We are in beautiful Kentucky,
home to fried chicken,

horse racing, and bourbon.

[narrator]
An architectural anomaly hides
within a forested valley.

When you come around the corner
on the road, everybody says,

"Oh, my gosh."

This place was built to
be a destination.

Here in the middle of rural
Kentucky is a castle.

[narrator]
Around this regal mystery is
a sprawling abandoned complex.

[Dr. Thomas]
You have some buildings that
look like medieval structures.

You have other buildings that
look industrial.

But most of them are
falling apart.

[narrator]
These buildings redefined
an industry so volatile

the government took up arms
against its own people.

This is the absolute ground
zero for the history of one of

America's
greatest institutions.

[narrator]
Will Arvin is part of a group
of people who are trying to

keep the traditions of
this site alive.

[Will] There's the concept of
stewardship here.

Ownership really doesn't matter
as much as we're preserving

history, we're bringing it
back to life.

[narrator]
What Will and his team are
conserving arrived in America

when Europeans first appeared
on the continent's shores.

Life was tough for a lot of
early American colonists.

And they looked to the comforts
of home, namely in the form

of whiskey.

[narrator]
But the ingredients available
to distill whiskey in

the New World were different
from the old,

something master distiller
Brett Connors is grateful for.

As they expanded into
the Western territories,

they started to see
a lot of corn.

And that corn became part of
those recipes that

they were distilling.

The whiskey corn made was
slightly sweeter than

the whiskey that was
distilled in Europe.

And eventually, this new
whiskey was christened
"bourbon."

All bourbon is whiskey,
but not all whiskey is bourbon.

The ingredients you put into
that initial fermentation has

to be a base of at least
51% corn.

Bourbon is truly
an American product.

It's our only native liquor.

[narrator]
But before it was officially
christened bourbon,

the American whiskey industry
came head to head with

its own government.

[Brett] Upon the founding of
the United States,

the federal government
was effectively broke.

So George Washington decided
that, well, why don't we just

tax whiskey producers?

[Dr. Thomas] Big mistake.

After you've just fought a war
for independence, what do

you want to do?

Go home and have a nice drink,
but not if it's taxed too high.

[narrator]
In Pennsylvania, some whiskey
producers fought back.

They weren't very kind to those

who were sent in to
collect taxes.

There's a great story about
a group of gentlemen that

dressed as women to lure a tax
collector off of his horse,

proceed to tar and feather him,
and then steal his horse.

[narrator]
Little did the rebels know
their actions would force

the hand of a founding father
to pick up arms once again.

[narrator]
In Kentucky stands a relic of
American whiskey production.

And while it played a major
role in transforming

the industry, the early days of
whiskey making in

the US were volatile.

In 1791, nearly a century
before this complex was built,

a group of rebels were fighting
a new tax on the spirit that

threatened to wipe many
distilleries out.

Things quickly escalated to
major incidents where gunfights

and battles broke out in
the streets of America.

Some of these fights even
ended in deaths.

Eventually, George Washington
stepped in.

[Dr. Thomas]
He mustered a militia
of 12,000 men and marched on

Western Pennsylvania,
intimidating the whiskey rebels

until they backed down.

[narrator]
This became known as
the Whiskey Rebellion, and was

the first time the American
government marched on its own

citizens, forcing many to flee.

There's always a rumor that
during the Whiskey Rebellion,

there was a lot of individuals
and distillers that fled

Pennsylvania to come to
the state of Kentucky.

[narrator]
Whether any of the rebels moved
here or not, these buildings'

chapter in the bourbon history
book began in a time of peace.

This is
the Old Taylor Distillery.

Constructed in 1887, it was
the brainchild of

Colonel E.H. Taylor.

Despite his moniker as
a colonel, he was not a colonel

in the US military,
but a Kentucky colonel,

which is an honorific bestowed
upon citizens who've reached

some level of prominence,
including those who make

finger-licking good
fried chicken.

[narrator]
Known as the father of
the modern bourbon industry,

In these buildings,
Colonel Taylor transformed how

the spirit was made.

But what he implemented came
from the other side of

the Atlantic Ocean.

To learn everything he could
about a quality product,

Colonel Taylor traveled
to Europe to visit

German breweries,
Irish whiskey distilleries,

and Scottish
scotch distilleries.

The two main things that
he learned were about

the importance of sanitization
and the use of copper in

distillation products.

[Dr. Alcock]
Copper has antibacterial
properties and also

its chemical composition allows
sulfur to be removed from

the liquid improving the taste.

[narrator]
After putting into action what
he learned, this distillery was

the first to produce one million
cases of straight bourbon.

Yet this isn't all it achieved.

This place took whiskey
production to a whole
new level.

It combines customer
hospitality

with the production
of good whiskey.

[narrator]
Inspired by the architecture
he had seen in Europe,

Colonel Taylor built this
castle to make his bourbon

brand stand out and attract
visitors to the distillery.

E.H. Taylor's parties here
were notorious.

They were over-the-top
showmanship across the board.

He would have had entire tables
just filled as deep as

they could have been
with his bourbons.

[narrator]
By hosting these parties,
Colonel Taylor was trying to

promote his product to compete
with the high-end scotch in

Irish whiskey markets.

But in the late 19th century,
bourbon had developed

a reputation as the bad boy
of the whiskey family.

[Dr. Alcock] Colonel Taylor
had a problem.

The American bourbon industry
was like the Wild West.

There was no regulation.

You could buy a bottle that
tasted wonderful or a bottle

that tasted like old bathwater.

With the lack of rules,
many distillers were claiming

their product was straight
bourbon, but it wasn't.

[narrator]
Some were adding things like
iodine to the spirit to give it

the appearance of an older
bourbon to sell it at

a higher price.

The rushed aging processes led
to some pretty suspect

whiskeys, even dangerous ones.

[Dr. Davis-Hayes]
Colonel Taylor made it
his life's mission to assist

customers in discerning between
proper bourbon like he made

and a number of other
inferior products.

[narrator]
For this, Colonel Taylor relied
on his contacts in Washington.

[Dr. Alcock] On the 3rd of
March, 1897, after years of

petitioning by Colonel Taylor,
Congress finally passed

the Bottled in Bond Act.

[Brett] It was the first food
protection act in the United

States and it had nothing to do
with food, that everything to

do with liquor,
which is quite telling.

[Dr. Davis-Hayes]
A bonded bottle is like
the green beret of bourbon.

It has a real mark of quality,
and it's still in use today.

[Brett]
The Bottled in Bond Act was
a legislative guarantee that it

had to be a minimum of four
years old, bottled in glass at

100 proof, distilled by
one distillery, and one
distillery season.

[narrator]
Although it started as
a guarantee for quality

bourbon, the Bottled in Bond
Act became the gold standard

for all American liquor, yet it
couldn't save the industry from

the wave of change
heading their way.

On January 16th, 1919,
the 18th Amendment was

ratified, and the following
year on January 17th,

the whole country went dry.

[narrator]
During Prohibition,
an unexpected tragedy struck

these buildings.

On the 19th of January,
1923, Colonel Taylor died.

[narrator]
Without their champion,
when America became wet again,

these buildings were passed
between several bourbon brands.

Used mainly as storage,
they never reached

their previous heights, and in
1972, were left abandoned.

[narrator]
Today, over 50 years later,
under Will's guidance,

this distillery has come alive
once more, with many of

the abandoned buildings being
restored to make bourbon,

but this time under a new name.

We do keep the traditions of
Colonel Taylor from his day.

We host events, we have tours,
we have tastings.

[narrator]
Will and his team have restored
around half of these buildings,

and there's hope that one day
the rest will follow.

[Will]
The buildings themselves here
are the memories of the past.

We are keeping pieces of
American history alive.

So much of Bourbon history is
grounded in this location.

[narrator]
In Connecticut, a set of
buildings was the heart of

a forgotten community,
where discrimination

didn't prevent prosperity.

[Maisa]
This place is a holy grail
for African-American history.

It's unfathomable that it
was forgotten.

We don't know why.

[narrator]
Half a mile from downtown
Bridgeport, a pair of derelict

structures stick out from
the surrounding

industrial architecture.

[Dr. Auerbach] These buildings
are in a sad state.

The windows are boarded up.
The wood is splintered.

[narrator]
These are not the only sign of
dilapidation around.

Across the block, there's what
looks like an old church.

[narrator]
These are the last remnants of
a 19th-century settlement that

challenges
ingrained stereotypes.

[Maisa]
For us to discover that people
had this kind of determination,

when we were taught that most
Black people during these times

were, if not enslaved,
very passive and waiting to be

rescued, this is
an amazing thing.

[narrator] For Maisa Tisdale,
these structures represent

a chapter in America's Black
history that was almost lost.

[Maisa]
The only thing that survives
are these two houses and the

church across the road.

Everything else is lying under
asphalt and power plants.

[narrator]
The origins of these buildings
go back over 200 years,

to a time when Connecticut was
one of the first states

in America to enact
a groundbreaking new law.

[Meigs] In 1784,
Connecticut passed

something called
the Gradual Abolition Act.

This was an effort to outlaw
slavery, but not overnight.

[Dr. Davis-Hayes]
This law stated that any
enslaved child born after this

year would be emancipated at
the age of 25.

[narrator]
At the time, Connecticut had
more enslaved people than any

other state in New England.

So 77 years before the Civil
War broke out, slavery was

still a crucial cog in
its economy, as Adisa Beatty
knows well.

[Dr. Beatty]
Slavery was profitable and
not something that they really

wanted to just relinquish.

So they tried to do this
gradual abolition.

This was a way for them to kind
of piecemeal out of

this economically.

[narrator]
But for many liberated by this
law, the free America

they found wasn't welcoming,
with white communities blocking

them from buying property in
populated areas.

Yet in April 1821, when this
land was still mosquito-ridden

marshland, a group of Black men
decided to make it their own.

There wasn't a restriction on
them being able to
purchase this land.

[narrator]
Soon, others followed,
and a thriving free Black

community grew.

This is Little Liberia.

It had about 36 structures,
which included businesses like

ship building.
There were two churches.

There were schools.

It was a really
prosperous place.

The proximity to water meant
that the primary industry of

Little Liberia was fishing,
and this was a real opportunity.

In those days, the only place
where a Black man could make as

much money as a white man
was at sea.

[narrator]
While the dangers of working on
the ocean provided

opportunities to
Little Liberia's men,

its wealthiest residents
weren't male.

[Maisa] These are the Mary and
Eliza Freeman houses.

They built two separate houses
side by side.

And back then, these houses
would have been

brightly painted.

[Dr. Beatty]
Mary and Eliza Freeman
were sisters.

They were Black entrepreneurs.

They came here in the 1840s.

[narrator]
But these weren't the only
structures in Little Liberia

owned by Mary and Eliza.

[Meigs] The Freeman sisters just
had a knack

for real estate development.

They built houses,
they rented houses out.

And over time,
they built a really extensive

real estate empire.

[Dr. Davis-Hayes]
In a time where 95%

of Black people in America were
held in bondage, Mary and Eliza

became wealthier than most of
the white men around.

They had enough money to build
mansions, but they still lived

in these modest homes.

[narrator]
With Mary and Eliza's help,
Little Liberia became a jewel

in the Black community.

And in the mid-19th century,
a transportation revolution

brought a new type of visitor
to its door.

[Dr. Auerbach] A railroad line
opened up between Bridgeport

and New York, meaning that
people from New York could
easily travel to

Little Liberia.

[narrator]
Having abolished slavery in
1827, New York City was

becoming a metropolis where
a new, wealthy, free Black

middle class had formed.

[Dr. Beatty]
Blacks who were in New
York City wanted to come here.

Little Liberia became
a vacation destination.

[Dr. Davis-Hayes]
In 1853, a luxurious hotel was
built here in Little Liberia.

Its salon had a grand piano.

It was the type of place that
wealthy white Americans would

have loved to stay.

But it was built for
African Americans.

[Dr. Beatty]
It was a safe place and a
respectable place where the men

could work during the week in
New York City and then come to

Little Liberia on the weekend
and be with their families.

[narrator]
Yet in the years before
the Civil War, not all of

Little Liberia's visitors
were carefree.

Some arrived on
the Underground Railroad.

The Underground Railroad was
not a physical railroad, it was

a series of safe houses that
could be used to help enslaved

men and women escape bondage.

[narrator]
As the clandestine network
moved people from south to

north, bounty hunters would
often search suspected stops

along the way, trying to
capture and return those

escaping slavery.
But not in Little Liberia.

[Maisa] It was an Underground
Railroad destination settlement.

The fact that this place was so
isolated really worked.

There was a safety in numbers
feeling because you were

surrounded by Black people.

So if someone had
self-emancipated from slavery,

they didn't really have
to hide.

[narrator] But Little Liberia
would only be a stop

on the Underground Railroad
for 40 years.

As the nation descended into
civil war, the lives of

the residents of this community
would be irreversibly changed.

[narrator]
Since the early 19th century,
the Bridgeport neighborhood of

Little Liberia had become
a prosperous home for free

African Americans.

Yet the peaceful times here
would soon be shattered when

the nation was ripped in two.

[Dr. Auerbach]
On the 12th of April,
1861, the American Civil War

started with the Confederate
South fighting to preserve

slavery and the Union North
fighting to keep

the country whole.

[Maisa] When the Civil War came,
Black men here wanted to fight

for freedom.

We know that there were at
least between 300 and 400 men

who enlisted from Bridgeport.

By participating with
the Union, they believed that

would open the doors to
equality for them.

[narrator]
However, the men from Little
Liberia would not find equality

within the Union ranks.

They were provided with
inferior arms and substandard

medical care, suffering higher
casualty rates than

their white comrades.

This resulted in the death of
more than one in five
Black soldiers.

[Dr. Beatty] The Civil War

impacted Little
Liberia's population.

Many of those young boys
and men did not come back.

[narrator]
Despite the emancipation of
African Americans across

the United States,
the Reconstruction era would

not be kind to this settlement.

[Maisa] We're often asked how
Little Liberia ended.

I would say it didn't so much
end as it became dismembered.

There was pressure on the land
to be used

for industrialization.

And Connecticut passed a series
of segregation laws.

Black people could not live in
the same neighborhoods as

white people.

And as the new factories moved
in, white people wanted to

live in Little
Liberia's neighborhoods.

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

Little Liberia ceased
to exist.

Its buildings were either
abandoned or repurposed

for new uses.

Today, over a century later,
Maisa is raising funds to

convert the Mary and Eliza
Freeman houses into a museum to

celebrate an often overlooked
part of history.

[Maisa] When I look at
these buildings now,

they're symbols for me
of hope.

As I face life as a Black
woman in the United States,

I never feel alone because
I always think about what these

people have accomplished.

[narrator]
In upstate New York are
the relics of a revolutionary

industry which built America's
greatest monuments.

[Althea]
There's this old world feeling
of a working industry that has

slowly been forgotten right off
the main highway that most

people don't even know is here.

[Meigs] We're a few miles from
the Hudson River.

It's an enchanted area.

You see rolling hills,
deep canyons.

Manhattan's only 80 miles away,
but it absolutely feels like

we're in another world.

[Bell] This area's always been
associated with mysterious,

magical and supernatural forces
like the legend of Rip Van

Winkle, and there's still lots
of fairy tale things
going on here.

[narrator]
Beneath an overgrown graveyard
a set of caverns hint at

a shady past.

[Bell] What on earth created
these huge caves?

Are they man-made?

I believe that this site was
imperative to forming America.

[narrator]
Althea Werner's family bought
this land in the town of

Rosendale over 30 years ago to
preserve its hidden history.

All of the lives that have been
touched by the industry and who

worked here that energy is
still here.

This part of upstate New York
was almost totally wild before

industry arrived at
the beginning of

the 19th century.

[Meigs] In 1825 some engineers
were building a canal from

the Delaware River
to the Hudson River in New York,

which gave access
to New York City.

They made a really
important discovery.

They were sitting around
a campfire, and one of

the campfire stones was noted
to behave a little differently.

They had the Eureka moment.
That was a cement stone.

[Bell]
They found a deposit of
dolomite limestone, which is

all you need to make
an incredibly strong cement.

[narrator]
This cement would prove to be
very useful to a nation in

the middle of
a construction boom.

[Meigs]
When you add water to this mix,
these grains of chemicals want

to make new molecular bonds.

They want to connect back to
each other.

So this ground-up cooked stone
wants to turn back into stone.

[narrator]
This huge cavern was mined to
extract the limestone to be

turned into cement.

[Althea] When you come in here,
you get a sense of wonderment

that is driven by the idea of
how it could even be done.

[narrator] This is
the Widow Jane Mine.

A.J. Snyder bought it from his
aunt, and she was affectionately

known as the Widow Jane.

[Meigs] By the mid-19th century,
this whole area was honeycomb

with mines, and the Widow Jane
Mine was one of the biggest.

[Rodriguez McRobbie]
Because they were following
a seam, the miners decided

to use a technique called room
and pillar, where basically

they would drill into the rock,
blast it out, but they would

leave these pillars to hold up
the roof of the cavern.

[Meigs] The miners called these
pillars Legos, not because

they resembled the plastic
bricks which had not yet been

invented, but because sometimes
they would just

let go and collapse.

[narrator] Despite the danger,
the mines of Rosendale

were hugely productive
and would go on to

build some of the most iconic
structures in America.

[narrator]
In upstate New York,
the limestone dug from

the mines of Rosendale would
supply half of North America's

cement needs in
the late 19th century.

Rosendale cement helped design
the landscape of Manhattan

and New York as we know it.

[Bell]
Because it hardened underwater,
Rosendale Cement was used to

construct many bridges,
including the most famous

bridge in the world at
the time, the Brooklyn Bridge.

[Meigs] The Washington Monument,

parts of the US
Capitol building,

so many of the things that
we think of

when we think of America were
built with Rosendale Cement.

[Rodriguez McRobbie]
Cement from the Widow Jane
Mine built the 27,000-ton

pedestal that the Statue of
Liberty stands on.

[narrator] But as the Industrial
Revolution pushed for cheaper

ways of construction,
a new challenger appeared.

[Meigs] In the 20th century,
demand for Rosendale cement

began to fall off.

For one thing, there was
another type of cement known as

Portland cement that didn't
require such pure limestone.

It could be made with a mix of
cheaper, more accessible

minerals that were available
across the US.

[Althea] Portland cement ended
up being able to be
produced faster,

and then just basically took
over the industry.

[Bell] Because of the switch to
Portland cement, by the end of

the 1920s, only one of the 15
Rosendale cement companies
had survived.

[narrator]
But in the 1930s, as the miners
of Rosendale were downing

their tools, new uses were
found for these huge caverns.

[Rodriguez McRobbie]
A man named Herman Knaust
started to buy up the abandoned

mines around Rosendale.

And he did it to
grow mushrooms.

[Meigs]
In fact, they say in the 1930s,
if you bought a can of mushroom

soup, you were probably eating
Rosendale mushrooms.

[narrator] But soon, Herman
Knaust came up with an even more

profitable plan.

[Meigs] During the Cold War,
Knaust realized that these

underground caves would also
make fantastic fallout shelters.

Everybody was worried about
nuclear war and people were

envisioning, could I live
underground for a few months to

survive such an event?

[Rodriguez McRobbie]
But it wasn't just individuals
who wanted the safety that

these caves could
potentially offer.

Tech firms, banks,
and government bodies

would all follow suit.

It's said that the caves
contained a five-story

building, a parking garage,
and a 65-room hotel.

[narrator]
Many of Rosendale's mines would
eventually flood or become

high-security
storage facilities.

It's been rumored that
the Constitution's even spent

some time in there
under safekeeping.

[narrator]
As different uses were found
for the mines of Rosendale,

the natural cement industry
limped on.

[Bell] The last natural cement
company closed in 1970,

almost a century and a half
after it was first

discovered here.

[narrator] Today, this mine has
been given a second life.

[Rodriguez McRobbie]
The Widow Jane Mine
is overseen by

the Century House
Historical Society.

It's open to the public
as a museum.

Although 80% of the mine is now
underwater, it is in high

demand as a performance venue.

[Althea]
So we have had taiko drumming,
we've had poetry readings.

They're awestruck when
they come in and when

the acoustics start.

[narrator]
And Althea makes sure everyone
who comes here understands what

the nation owes this hole in
the ground in upstate New York.

Had this mine not been found,
then the New York City Harbor

with Lady Liberty would not be
standing quite as grand

as she does.