Stories from underneath El Paso High

Halloween is approaching and the tunnels underneath El Paso High School opened to the public Saturday.

The alumni association gave tours of the tunnels underneath the school and sharing the history of El Paso’s oldest high school.

El Paso High school has more than 100 years of history in its halls. While it may be most famous around town for the reported hauntings, the school has been much more than a home for ghosts.

Underneath El Paso High School lies a network of tunnels. The larger network has been filled in and blocked off, but several corridors are still open, closed to the public.

While education has dominated the floors above ground, these tunnels have serve as shelters from Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution and potential bomb shelters during the second world war.

As the Alumni association guided visitors through the tunnels they shared stories from the school’s past, including some of those spirits said to haunt the school.

Alumni said the tours are a great way to share their proud history with the city.

“If you came to school before ’95 you didn’t know about the tunnels, you didn’t know about all this history of the school, so that’s my goal: to share all the history of the building. I started by sharing it with the students. I’ve been a substitute teacher here for 23 years, so I share it with the students for many reasons but it’s so they appreciate the history of the building,” said Lina Troncoso, an El Paso high alumna guiding tours.

Make sure you tune in to ABC-7 at 10, we’ll be sharing some of the ghost stories told on the tours and have footage from our infrared camera in the dark sections of the tour.

The tunnel tours were part of a fundraiser for the El Paso High Alumni Association to build a museum. If you’d like to help you can donate by mailing a check to the school, 800 E Schuster Ave, El Paso, TX 79902 in care of the Alumni Association.

You can also donate by following this link to the El Paso High Alumni Association website.