Every day, long-haul truckers and commuters pass through the George Wallace Tunnel, briefly slipping away from daylight and 40 feet underwater, until reemerging into downtown Mobile, Alabama.
Since opening in 1973, the twin tubes beneath the Mobile River have become a Gulf Coast landmark, particularly in the summer, when drivers are traveling to Florida's popular white sand beaches, like Destin and Pensacola.
On its busiest holiday weekends, over 10,000 vehicles pass through the tunnels that carry Interstate 10 travelers. Road-trippers have even created a ritual for the 3,000-foot stretch of road: holding their breath all the way to the tunnel's end.
In an age of self-driving cars, the tubes are a reminder that old-fashioned transportation still captivates Americans. That is especially true in the South -- where streetcars in New Orleans are both a valued local commodity and a place for impromptu social encounters, and where commuters wait for the new Amtrak train that rolls past marshes and rivers between Bay St. Louis and Mobile.
But the George Wallace Tunnel is not the South's first underwater roadway, only its best known.
First in the South
Nearly three decades earlier, in 1941, Bankhead Tunnel -- named after Sen. John Bankhead, who pioneered transportation development, especially in Alabama -- also opened under the Mobile River.
Soon after its opening, the 1,147-foot tubes were a success, earning hefty funds through tolls, trimming the cross-bay trip by 18 minutes and lessening traffic snarls, The Times-Picayune reported, noting that it represents "a fine engineering feat and a wonderful aid to Gulf Coast travel."
Within three years, a daily average of 1,300 cars were passing through Bankhead, several hundred above its estimate. Reporters said this spike was likely due to Mobile being a major production site for weapon systems as the United States entered World War II.
Palmer and Baker, the engineering company behind Bankhead, originally designed it to endure common natural disasters like hurricanes. But during the war, its purpose expanded to withstanding the threat of atomic bombs.
The tunnel spurred politicians to advocate for underwater bridges in other southern cities and beyond. Palmer and Baker eventually designed tunnels for Harvey and Belle Chasse, Louisiana. Later, it was commissioned to design traffic tunnels in Cuba and Sweden, both of which never came to fruition, newspaper archives show.
Fear of underwater tunnels
But what did come to life, and stayed for decades, were the tubes in the New Orleans area. City officials started considering the concept in 1947 and commissioned Palmer and Baker to create a plan for a tunnel underneath the Industrial Canal.
Members of the city's levee board told The Times-Picayune that the project would resolve traffic issues and add to city revenues by increasing the values of surrounding properties. But roadway tunnels in the South weren't always viewed positively.
Many drivers shunned roadway tunnels, fearing excess carbon monoxide from car exhaust and the concept of driving in the dark. After designing Bankhead, Palmer and Banker proved these theories were wrong with ventilating systems and scientific experiments showing that eyes can adjust quickly to dim conditions.
Beyond safety concerns, many didn't think it was possible to build underwater roadways in a deltaic region like the South.
"For years the people of the Deep South shrugged off the thought of having tunnels because they were sure you couldn't build anything through the muck that is Louisiana's channel beds," Times-Picayune reporters wrote.
Palmer and Baker engineers boldly rejected this, assuring it's just as easy to build a tunnel in the South as in "New York or California or where-have-you." But the Belle Chasse and Harvey tunnels showed that this was not the case.
Tubes in New Orleans area
Costing over $2 million, the Belle Chasse Tunnel was the first to open in Louisiana in 1956. It was what Palmer and Baker called "the world's first 'automatic' tunnel, requiring no maintenance or operating personnel," according to The Times-Picayune.
Built between 1954 and 1957, the Harvey Tunnel was the first underwater roadway to be authorized in Louisiana, costing the state $5 million. Within months of its opening, the tunnel made the area more desirable, with real estate agencies using it as a selling point in newspaper advertisements. And the West Bank's population did double afterward, hitting nearly 100,000 residents compared to 53,000 in 1943.
Both closed decades later, in December 2023. The Harvey Tunnel's closure was temporary, for a $53.7 million overhaul. But days later, the Belle Chasse Tunnel -- nicknamed the Belle Chasse car wash -- did close permanently, with a history of leaks that exposed the fragility of the New Orleans area's aging infrastructure.
That has left the Houma Tunnel, tucked beneath the Gulf Intracoastal Highway, as the only one operating in Louisiana.