Royal Purple

the tunnels are real. they have entrances in the basements of some of the older homes. I know of a few on main st, one on milwaukee ave, another on jefferson st they have been sealed. a friend of my father's who grew up here claimed to have been in one. he said he was at one of the old frat houses where he found the entrance. he said it was a brick arched tunnel you could stand in, and steps led down. he said he went down 30 or so stairs and no further but that the stairs ahead went deeper into the darkness. if you ask many of the older locals of the tunnels they will most likely tell you of a first hand account of some experience with the tunnels and could probably tell you of the location of an entrance or two. though these were probably designed for slaves i've not heard anyone make a solid claim of their purpose. I remember when an old train station building (it was probably a warehouse and stood next to the depot) was torn down in the early 90's. they unearthed a room about 4x7 and about 8 feet deep with a sealed (with concrete) doorway, which seemed to lead to more underground space. this was about 8 feet away from train tracks. the history on all of this seems to be hush hush. the university was a college for the paranormal until around 1946. the book is said to be below the old city library's basement, which is now the chamber of commerce, not the university library. this basement isn't dug very deep, it's half above ground with windows. so you could see they wouldnt have to dig too deep to have another level below the basement. another interesting legend is of a small octagon house that in which 7 people have committed suicide. it's on newcomb st. octagons are supposed to be wards of some sort so I've been told. the cabin on the hill was the city public school. as a child i had a friend on jefferson street. one of the neighbor kids was a 16 year old girl across the street. her parents found her in a secret room she appearantly discovered in their house with evidence she was practicing witchcraft. every other town has a mary worth legend and rumors of haunted homes, but whitewater has some unique and believable history when it comes to such things.

Joe, I know for a fact that you can add a certain house on Center St. that I used to live in to that list of homes with tunnels. I was quite young and my parents were remodeling the house with a friend helping, pulled up a floor and found a staircase going down. My dad said he shined (shone?) his police issued Mag lite down there and couldn't see all the way down.

While I have also heard some of those stories (and some more from my dad from when he was an 'evil' cop in Whitewater) of witch dealings in and around Whitewater, he also told me that alot of it has to deal with the underground railroad. Think about it, there is a major point in Milton for the UR (a museum, I'm pretty sure it's still there). A night's walk from Milton? Whitewater.