Groundhogs, also known as woodchucks, are not native to Washington State, so on Groundhog Day in 1960, a reporter for the Seattle PI checked in with a different sort of subterranean creature. Shown here are Seattle Engineering Department employees George Gregory and Bruce Gordon, who briefly emerged from the underground control chamber in the Battery Street tunnel to speak to the reporter at the corner of 4th Avenue and Battery Street. The two spent their days in the tunnel monitoring carbon monoxide levels, ventilation, and fire safety systems from the control chamber, located near the center of the tunnel.

This photo shows tunnel tender Bruce Gordon cautiously poking his head up through a manhole at 4th and Battery while George Gregory looks on. “We are the only groundhogs with an address,” they said, referring to the building at 2339 4th Avenue from which they accessed the tunnel. The two soon left the rain, traffic and pedestrians behind and returned to their underground chamber, “where the temperature is always 70 degrees, and it never rains.”

Caption information source: “Groundhog Day won’t honor pork sausage: Battery St. Tunnel workers busy” by Sam Angeloff, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 2,1960, p.1
Caption information source: Alaskan Way Viaduct and Battery Street TunneL, HAER WA-184, retrieved at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/master/pnp/habshaer/wa/wa0800/wa0830/data/wa0830data.pdf