We often pass by the "Tunnel of Flags" and most generally will stop to look at the newest graffiti that has been added. We extended our last trip just to stop by and photograph the date on the tunnel.
Greenwood was just one of dozens of mining towns which sprang up in the boundary country of southern BC in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Its lifeblood industry, a copper smelter, closed and disappeared nearly a century ago, but it has, against all odds, survived, if only as a shadow of its former self.
Just north of Greenwood beside Highway 3 is an incongruous sight, a large concrete tunnel under nothing and leading from nowhere to nowhere. This millennium project was actually intended to cover the graffiti that had accumulated on the tunnel. The mayor of Greenwood, at the time, Arno Hennig, decided to counter this by painting over the graffiti with flags from around the world as a civic millennium project. When he and his army of volunteers were finished 210 country flags adorned the outside walls of the tunnel.
The full story of the tunnel can be seen below.
Greenwood Road Tunnel
Copper electrified the world in the late 1800s and early 1900s. With its many industrial applications and ability to efficiently conduct electricity, copper brought riches, comparable to the gold rushes of the Cariboo and Klondike, to the Boundary District of southern British Columbia. Copper mining required substantial transportation facilities to allow the production of a cost-efficient commodity. And the Canadian Pacific Railway came to the Boundary with that in mind.
Copper was found all around Boundary Creek - at Deadwood and Motherlode to the west and Phoenix to the east. Copper smelters were built at Greenwood/Anaconda and at Boundary Falls. The Columbia & Western Railway (owned by the CPR) pushed their rails through from Grand Forks to Greenwood and Midway in 1899 - with passenger service beginning on November 20.
This location where you are standing was the site of the 1899 C&W trestle and truss bridge pictured above. In 1913, the wood bridge was replaced with a rock and gravel fill. This required the construction of a one-lane concrete-lined road tunnel and a stone-walled culvert to carry Boundary Creek under the new rail-bed.
Tunnel is shown at the right in 1913.
In 1964, the one-lane road tunnel was replaced with a two-lane tunnel. The old tunnel was filled in with earth.
The photo at left shows the site in 1967 with an east-bound diesel locomotive crossing the highway.
In 1990, the CPR abandoned the railway throughout the Boundary District and started the process of removing infrastructure. The fill above the highway was removed, and as there Has 110 longer a need for a tunnel on the highway, the two-lane tunnel was destroyed.
But the 1913 one-lane tunnel was unearthed and given by the CPR to the City of Greenwood as a heritage landmark. In 2000, as a Millennium project for the City, over 210 flags from all over the world were painted on the outside of the tunnel - in a way to welcome visitors to this part of the Boundary. this "Tunnel of Flags" is a symbol of the connection between the world of today and the very different world of yesterday.
From the sign
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In 1913 one-lane tunnel was unearthed and given by the CPR to the City of Greenwood as a heritage landmark.
In 2000, as a Millennium project for the City, over 210 flags from all over the world were painted on the outside of the tunnel - in a way to welcome visitors to this part of the Boundary. this "Tunnel of Flags" is a symbol of the connection between the world of today and the very different world of yesterday.