Are they utilidors? Are they bomb shelters? Are they underground hallways to avoid snow?  I have heard rumors about these tunnels for years.  Some people said they were put there to allow access between houses during World War II, people joked about other possible purposes.

Janet Kincaid, a longtime Palmeranian and owner of the Colony Inn and Cafe knows about the tunnels because the building that she owns is a terminus of the tunnels. She was going to meet me there but we had a scheduling mixup.  So as I waited for Janet, Mike Fisher jovially volunteered to share what he knew.

“What many people don’t know about the Colony Inn”, Mike Fisher told me, “is that there’s just about as much of the building below ground as there is above!”. The apparently 2 story building has two floors below ground as well. He took me down two flights of stairs behind the “Employees Only” door and we came out into a large open room, almost two stories high.

The walls were cement, as was the floor. But what caught my eye was the hugest boiler I’ve ever seen.  It was easily 7 ft tall and 10 ft long. I was told that the tunnels under Palmer were built in the 1930’s, along with the rest of the main buildings like the high school (borough building), Trading Post (The Red Beet) and Creamery and Warehouse (old Matanuska Maid building). The tunnels had pipes that were used to heat the many buildings all at once from two huge boilers. One boiler was at Matanuska Maid and I stood directly in front of the other one.  

Mike showed me into a dark room adjacent to the boiler room and told me it was the coal room. The ceiling was just as high but at the very top of the west facing wall was an opening. He said colonists would back trucks up to the opening and shovel coal down into the room as fuel for the boilers.

Many of the tunnels have since been caved in for road safety, as most go directly underneath the road system. The opening of one came out in the boiler room, two stories under the Colony Inn, but it was caved in and covered over in cement. You can still see the outline.

If you talk to some of the more adventurous junior high school students from a couple years ago, you can probably find people who’ve been down in the tunnels.  One of the known accesses is fenced off and is illegal to enter, but that hasn’t stopped a few of my acqaintances. I’ve been told that certain buildings have been severely damaged by fires started down in tunnels by careless youth.

Have more information on this topic? Please contact me and share your knowledge! If any of the stated facts are incorrect, again, please let me know. This is by no means the end of my research on this interesting part of Palmer’s history.

*The first photo is of the large boiler. The second is of the coal room, note the opening near the top of the photo.

The Colony House Museum is run by the Palmer Historical Society.

The price for a tour is $2 for adults, $1 for children. I paid the $2 yesterday and entered for the first time. Apparently, if you’ve gone through elementary school here in Palmer, you’ve visited. But I was homeschooled till highschool, so this was my first.

Upon entering, one of the proprietors greeted me and showed me maps of the divided homesteads, each of 40 acres. She pointed to one, #189 and told me that was her family’s homestead, out near the butte. It was larger than 40 acres because some of it was unuseable. The ARRC (Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corp) wanted each family to have 40 acres of workable land for agriculture. She also showed me a poster-size photo of Palmer taken in 1938. It was a lot more spread out then!

The living room is decorated with donated furniture from the 30’s and 40’s era and some original to the home. A large, upright piano takes up one wall. Each colonist family was allowed to bring 2,000 lbs of goods and personal items to Alaska with them. So, the owners of the piano lifted up the top lid and filled it full of clothes; they didn’t have any suitcases.

The kitchen is cheery with yellow cabinetry and a huge stove/oven sits opposite. The back entry has a milk separator in one corner; for separating the cream from the milk after milking the cows morning and evening. There are 3 bedrooms and a washroom. Old books, games and photos are found throughout the home, each donated by the families of original colonists.

I really appreciated the opportunity to look back into what life may have been like in my own town +70 years ago. The proprietor was full of humorous and interesting stories of life back then. She was just three when her family moved here. It was really neat to hear first-person what that life was like, and how people lived.

I definitely encourage you to go and visit the Colony House Museum. It’s worth far more than just $2 dollars; it’s our history, our heritage.

Photo 1 is a plaque recognizing Palmer’s outstanding seniors, class of ‘38. Photo 2 is a nurse’s uniform worn by one of the nurses at the first clinic in Palmer. Photo 3 is of the Colony House’s kitchen. Photo 4 is of the child’s room. All photos are expandable if clicked on.

Have you ever driven or walked through Palmer, and wondered what all those old buildings were, and if they are still used? Have you ever been to the Colony House Museum? Have you ever wondered why there was a fenced-in bell near the library?

Today I walked around Palmer and photographed many of those buildings, as well as inquired of their history. Here is what I saw and learned. All photos are expandable if clicked on.

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Photo 1: Palmer Train Depot
Photo 2: Borough Green, Old Mat. Colony Trading Post (Now home of The Red Beet), Palmer Water Tower in Background
Photo 3: Colony Inn and Restaurant
Photo 4: UAF Agriculture Research in the Matanuska Valley
Photo 5: Palmer Courthouse/Pre-Trial Facility
Photo 6: Palmer Water Tower, Old Matanuska Maid buildings

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Photo 7: Front of Borough Building
Photo 8: Back of Borough Building, Lazy Mountain to the left, Byers Peak in the center.
Photo 3: Borough Gym