Pogue's Run Tunnel

Pogue's Run is an urban creek that starts near the intersection of Elizabeth Street and Lennington Drive on the east side of Indianapolis, Indiana, and empties into the White River south of the Kentucky Avenue bridge over that river. At the stream's intersection with New York Street just east of downtown Indianapolis it enters a double-box culvert conduit through which it flows underneath downtown Indianapolis. It is named for George Pogue, who, along with John Wesley McCormick, were among the first settlers in what would become the city of Indianapolis.

When Indianapolis was laid out, only Pogue's Run running diagonally across the southeast portion of the "Mile Square" disturbed the orderliness of the grid pattern. Alexander Ralston had to make compromises due to the stream's location within the congressional donation lands given for the future Indianapolis. Before the state government could be moved to Indianapolis from Corydon, fifty dollars was spent to rid swampy Pogue's Run of the mosquitoes that made it a "source of pestilence".

Beginning in 1914 and finishing in 1915, a project referred to variously as the "Pogue's Run Drain" and the "Pogue's Run Improvement" led to the stream's submersion beneath downtown Indianapolis from New York Street on the east side to the White River on the west side of the city. The removal of Pogue's Run from the visible landscape in the Mile Square cost well over one million dollars. A number of factors influenced the decision to cover over Pogue's Run, including the economic and human costs from decades of violent flooding, public health risks from diseases, and the stream's unsightly and unpleasant smell due to years of sewage and industrial pollution. The sewering of Pogue's Run also paved the way for railroad track elevations, which alleviated congestion on Indianapolis' ever busier roads.

A project named "Charting Pogue's Run" marks where the creek once ran in downtown Indianapolis. A blue line, made of thirty permanent steel medallions and a semi-permanent blue thermoplastic line, "meanders" across roads and parking lots. The blue line's location shows that Pogue's Run now lies under both Lucas Oil Stadium and Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

https://www.americansforthearts.org/by-program/networks-and-councils/public-art-network/public-art-year-in-review-database/charting-pogues-run

In popular culture

The movie Twice Under (1987) about a Vietnam veteran "tunnel rat" terrorizing a city was partially shot in the underground portion of Pogue's Run between New York and Washington streets. The underground portion of Pogue's Run is a significant feature in Ben Winters' 2016 book, Underground Airlines, and in John Green's 2017 book, Turtles All the Way Down.