So, you hung out in the Jergins Tunnel Oct. 28, and you consider yourself a tunnel-ologist? You have no idea.

As the city studies how to restore what remains of the subterranean walkway which once led to the beach from Ocean Boulevard and Pine Avenue, it’s important to consider what other abandoned underground walkways may be still out there.

Long Beach historian Morgan Humphrey counts more than a half-dozen sunken concrete passages throughout the city.

Among the highlights is another underground walkway about half as wide as the Jergins Tunnel, that–up until the 1960s or so–began in Bixby Park, at Broadway and Cherry Avenue and ended at the beach.

But in 1933–Humphrey thinks it was after the March 10, 1933 Long Beach earthquake–the city built several other small pedestrian undercrossings at local schools.

Wilson High students got one, at Tenth Street and Ximeno Avenue. So did Burbank Elementary students, at Fourth Street and Junipero Avenue. (Remember Luther Burbank?)

Humphrey believes these two tunnels bisected Ximeno and Junipero, respectively–but he’s not sure; they could have gone under Tenth Street and Fourth Street.

Elsewhere in 1933 Long Beach, Poly High students got their own tunnel across Atlantic Avenue–keeping them safe from marauding hot rodders in 1932 Fords, which were then all of a year old.

Students at Hamilton High also received an undercrossing, at Gundry Avenue and State Street, which was what they called Pacific Coast Highway.

And Hamilton High was what they called Long Beach City College–not really, but the area at Gundry Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway was the old Hamilton High campus, the historian says, before LBCC moved in and did its thing.

Humphrey says he walked through that tunnel a lot in the 1960s as a college student; he remembers it being maybe 6-feet-6-inches high, and only about 4 feet wide.

He’s not certain when it was built–only that, like all the other tunnels, it was filled in long ago. Probably during the big jaywalking craze of ‘68.

Tags: Bixby Park, Burbank Elementary, California, Hamilton High, jaywalking, jergins tunnel, Long Beach, long beach city college, Luther Burbank, Morgan Humphrey, Pacific Coast Campus, Poly High, Southern California, State Street, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas, Wilson High