By Sara Mattes
“Did you know…?” that Lincoln had the first bomb shelter in New England and possibly the first in the United States?
The Storrows’ bomb shelter was so newsworthy in 1940 that the Wide World photo service circulated this photo nationally. It even appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
The bomb shelter under construction in 1940 on the Lincoln estate of James and Helen Storrow (now the Carroll School). The entrance in the foreground is still visible from Baker Bridge Road.
The puzzle is: Why did the Storrows think they needed a bomb shelter? Granted, Europe had been at war for over a year, and the United States had started drafting young men into the military. But the U.S. was not yet at war, and the attack on Pearl Harbor was more than a year away. Did Helen and James Storrow really think that Hitler would send bombers across the Atlantic just to attack their home in Lincoln? Tell us what you know about the Storrows’ bomb shelter and help us fill out the story.
Are you curious about other people or places in Lincoln’s history? Tell us your question, and we will try to respond with another “Did You Know…?” Send your suggestions to president@lincolnhistoricalsociety.org.
“Lincoln’s History” is an occasional column by members of the Lincoln Historical Society.
Cathy,
I ahve the script from”Pickles to Pasture.”
I will review it to see what is said. Those who worked on that script were good historians.
Sara
My husband and I took the “Pickles to Pastures” tour, a historical tour around town in the early 2000s. The stops on the tour included a talk, sometimes by someone dressed as a “re-enactor.” At the Storrow bomb-shelter tour stop, we were greeted by someone dressed in 1940s clothing saying she was “Mrs. Storrow.” She toured us around the bomb shelter and said that the Storrows had built it because they had a contact in Germany who told them that the Germans were secretly building a very powerful bomb. She said that the Storrows had been told that the bomb was so powerful that even if dropped in the center of Boston, its destruction would come out as far as Lincoln. That’s why they built such a strong shelter so deep in the earth. The inside of the bomb shelter was very large with big rooms and thick concrete walls — and we were told that it was so large so that people could stay in there for a long time and have room for supplies, furniture, etc. The children of the Carroll School had since been allowed to paint some of the walls of the bomb shelter with Egyptian figures and hieroglyphics — the Egyptian paintings had both an eerie and amusing effect. I have no idea if what the tour guide told us was accurate or apocryphal about why the shelter was built. Does anyone else remember being given this explanation on the “Pickles to Pastures” tour?
Cathy Moritz