ISBN
9780807173572
Publication Date
2020
Price
34.95
Publisher
Louisiana State University PressIn Buried Dreams, Andrew R. Black chronicles the largely forgotten effort of Massachusetts to surmount the Berkshires and build a permanent link with the interior in order to retain the Commonwealth’s, and particularly the port of Boston’s economic prominence. This effort, the 4.75 mile-long Hoosac Tunnel, eventually took twenty-four years, ended over one hundred lives, and consumed more than $20,000,000 in state funds. Born of a desire for boundless western bounty, it never fulfilled the lofty expectations its supporters heaped upon it. Predicted by its early enthusiasts (tunnelites) to take but a few years, and presenting few if any engineering or geological challenges to complete, the tunnel proved its harshest and most persistent critics largely correct
Abstract
In Buried Dreams, Andrew R. Black chronicles the largely forgotten effort of Massachusetts to surmount the Berkshires and build a permanent link with the interior in order to retain the Commonwealth’s, and particularly the port of Boston’s economic prominence. This effort, the 4.75 mile-long Hoosac Tunnel, eventually took twenty-four years, ended over one hundred lives, and consumed more than $20,000,000 in state funds. Born of a desire for boundless western bounty, it never fulfilled the lofty expectations its supporters heaped upon it. Predicted by its early enthusiasts (tunnelites) to take but a few years, and presenting few if any engineering or geological challenges to complete, the tunnel proved its harshest and most persistent critics largely correct.
DOI
10.31390/cwbr.24.1.11
Recommended Citation
Randolph, Scott
(2022)
"Buried Dreams: The Hoosac Tunnel and the Demise of the Railroad Age,"
Civil War Book Review: Vol. 24
:
Iss.
1
.
DOI: 10.31390/cwbr.24.1.11
Available at:
https://repository.lsu.edu/cwbr/vol24/iss1/11
