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Originally Posted by wardlow
Thank goodness! The most common one is that there are tunnels "all around the Exchange District," usually for the purpose of transporting and hiding booze. Bonus points if you believe Al Capone had them constructed. A less popular though more titillating version is that they were built for transporting johns/prostitutes incognito. Bonus points if you believe it connected to the old city hall.
Some tinfoil-hat acquaintances once tried convincing me there's a tunnel directly from the Legislature to the old Masonic Hall at Donald and Ellice -- more than a kilometre away.
There is/was, according to fire insurance maps, a tunnel from the Legislature to the powerhouse building on Memorial (behind the Court of QB complex).
The Royal Alexandra Hotel and the CP station on Higgins Avenue shared a party was, so I don't think it was a tunnel as much as it was a passage between two basements.
I remember being in the basement of the Royal Albert Hotel, and there being a rusticated stone grotto which was built under the front sidewalk on Albert Street. Maybe this and other underground encroachments beyond buildings' footprint or property lines is what started this whole Exchange District tunnel business?
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There is another alternative.....
Do what Moses Jaw has done. Embrace the myths. Buy some Al Capone costumes, hire some drama university students and turn it into a tourist attraction.
The prostitute angle is an interesting Winnipeg one. I think Saskatchewan tourist attraction started with Al Capone and smugglers and now it is added another tour for the Chinese immigrant underground that lived in the tunnels.
Winnipeg could have its own stores. No need for any of them to be true or historically accurate.