Exploring a historic school in Cedar Rapids and what lies under its surface.
This is Mount Mercy from above ground. Elegant, established, and beautiful surrounded by May flowers, this university is interesting enough on its surface – but has even more going on than meets the eye.
Originally established by the Sisters of Mercy from Davenport, Independence, and originally, Chicago, the school originally started as a two-year women’s college in 1928. A local parochial school requested the presence of the order in Cedar Rapids as early as 1875, but in a fiasco I now relate to very personally, the sisters arrived to find the designated building unfinished – it didn’t even have windows! The building was eventually finished and served as an academy as well as convent and novitiate. The sisters established a nearby hospital around 1894 and again in 1900. Demand for medical services being so high, they also established a school of nursing. Busy and bursting at the seams, they started eyeing a disused mansion outside the city limits and bought the property in 1907. The mansion had to be torn down eventually in 1964, but the school itself grew tremendously. They became a four-year college in 1960 after long standing as an academy. They became co-ed in 1969.
Today, Mount Mercy is known for medical education. The campus sits on a hilltop surrounded by a somewhat dicey neighborhood. It’s well known for sports programs and their fields sit next to old industrial-looking sites… an odd juxtaposition. Sacred Heart Convent in Cedar Rapids has its headquarters there. They offer Cedar Rapids’ first doctoral program.
I was on campus recently for a work errand and something odd caught my eye.
Tunnels? Indeed, tunnels. I opened the door labelled “tunnel”, and saw this:
TUNNELS.
Mount Mercy has real underground tunnels connecting the main campus buildings. From above, you’d never know they were there.
According to this Gazette article, they were constructed in 1954 for a purely functional purpose: the utility pipes from the main boiler in Warde Hall. However, during the Cold War area, the tunnels also served as a school bunker. Students still use them regularly today to keep out of the cold or wet weather.
All this captured my imagination, so after work I took my iPhone and went down to explore a little.
The steam pipes are still active down there. They lend the most eeriness to the experience, providing a rumbling soundtrack, making the atmosphere musty and warm, dripping water at some points. For pipes built so many years ago, they’re holding up well.
The walls along the tunnels are covered with artwork, murals of every description. The students’ colorful optimism shines from the walls to counterbalance what could be a dreary walk underground.
Mount Mercy isn’t the only school with underground tunnels, of course. Plenty of universities use underground systems for exactly the same reasons as Mount Mercy: weather, speed of access. My first experience was these old cement ones in Cedar Rapids, though, and my imagination loved everything about it.
Let me paint a picture for you. You’re driving home from work in the evening. Exiting the highway, you wind through humble neighborhood roads until suddenly, incongruously, you come to a green hilltop covered with big trees. Amid the elegant landscape, the giant brick Warde Hall towers there from the hilltop; the sunset throws long shadows across the scene. Your window open, you hear distant bells chime the hour.
Not for a second could you imagine there isn’t more to this place than meets the eye.
~ The Dauntless Princess ~