The discovery of a mysterious network of hidden tunnels beneath a Florida city has sparked wild theories about their origin.
The passageways under Ybor City, a suburb near downtown Tampa, remained hidden for decades before a string of discoveries revealed the subterranean network.
Historians have since speculated widely over their use, from moving moonshine, human trafficking and cash smuggling to simply ‘as a sewer’.
The latest tunnels were found in 2018 near the Old Florida Brewery, close to East 6th Avenue and Noccio Parkway, while construction was being carried out on a new office building.
Workers were tearing down a warehouse when they found the hidden passage, tall enough to stand up in with a rounded ceiling.
Spacious tunnels that may have been used for smuggling in Chinese-Cuban prostitutes during Prohibition have been discovered during construction in Tampa, Florida’s Ybor City
History professor and researcher Dr. Gary Mormino described the tunnels to DailyMail.com as, ‘nothing too remarkable to look at,’ flat on the bottom, and wide, making them unsuitable as a sewage system, and all the more interesting to those wondering why they exist
Several of the tunnels are brick-lined and only a few feet tall by a few feet wide – just enough for an adults to crouch or crawl through. The layered brickworks suggests they were constructed by skilled laborers.
There’s been talk about mysterious passageways underneath the suburb of Ybor City in Central Florida going back about 20 years, according to University of Southern Florida – St. Petersburg professor Emeritus of history Dr. Gary Mormino.
Professor Dr. Gary Mormino said the tunnels were likely part of a criminal network, and that Ybor City officials would have known
Mormino, 77, who has been researching the history of Ybor City for about 40 years, said the first tunnels of this kind were unearthed about two decades ago whe
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