The Northville tunnels

Michigan · United States · Hospital

Michigan built psychiatric institutions across this town in the 1940s and 1950s, less than a mile apart, linked underground. The tunnels are blocked off.

Northville, Michigan held a concentration of psychiatric institutions through the 1940s and 1950s, standing less than a mile from one another and covering much of the town.

They were connected by underground passages, used to move patients between buildings out of sight. The tunnels run beneath the town and beneath buildings that now stand where the institutions did.

What circulates locally is that the tunnels were also where patients who could not be controlled were punished, out of earshot of the wards. No record supports that and it is set down here as rumour. Institutional histories of this period contain enough documented mistreatment that inventions are not required.

The tunnels are blocked off. People go in anyway, and the reports that come back are from them.

The underground network is the genuine curiosity here. A town of this size does not usually have a second town beneath it, and this one was built specifically so that the people inside would not be seen crossing the ground above.

FAQ

Where is The Northville tunnels located?

The Northville tunnels is in Michigan, United States.