The dark and seemingly never-ending tunnels beneath Bakersfield College echo decades of history, according to Bill Rush, interim director of maintenance and operations.

“These tunnels were created when the campus was originally built in the early to mid-1950s,” Rush said. “The tunnels were originally built to house the communications, such as the telephone and electrical cables to utilities.”

The tunnels, however, break off into intersections leading to other passages, resembling a four-way street, and are more than one mile long. They also act as a fallout shelter, which can shelter thousands of people in the event of an emergency.

“You have to distinguish the difference between a fallout shelter and a bomb shelter,” he said. “All the tunnels we have here are fallout shelters. Bomb shelters by definition would be that of a shelter that can support life and keep people from injuries and exposures.”

Rush also said that the federal government provided food, supplies and other items for the tunnels in the 1950s in case of a nuclear war.

“Years ago, there use to be medicine, foods, canopies and portable toilets stored in the tunnels,” he said. “Unfortunately, now there isn’t any food or water down here. But if we ever get to the point, we’ll probably be restocking if there was a nuclear war.”

Yet time has been recorded on the walls of the tunnels, including graffiti of peace signs and anti-war slogans during the Vietnam War.

“They were coming in the tunnels and partying,” Rush said. “If these walls could talk, I could just imagine they would have some wild stories.”

BC students were able to enter these tunnels through manholes, which are entrances that are two feet in diameter and located on various sidewalks on campus.

“When dorms were on campus, they had to cover all the manhole covers because too many students were coming in the tunnels,” Rush said.

According to Kathy Rosellini, a BC counselor, incidents of students entering the tunnels were common.

“College students, being college students, are going to be curious,” Rosellini said. “Entering into tunnels had been happening for years. It was a dorm activity that carried on year after year. After that we started locking them down.”

Yet many students don’t know why the underground tunnels were constructed, Rosellini said.

“During the Cold War, preschool students were having drills about duck and cover in case of a nuclear bomb,” she said. “And of course, that is why the tunnels were put in. I think it’s always a fascination to people to learn that we even have tunnels.”