The Nevada Builders Alliance is partnering with Friends of Sutro Tunnel Charity for a fundraiser on Thursday. The event will be held at the historic Sutro Tunnel site in Dayton.

Adolph Sutro built the 3.88-mile-long tunnel in the late 1800s to drain and ventilate the mines of Virginia City. But over the years, a series of collapses basically sealed it up. Now, Friends of Sutro Tunnel Charity is working to open up a section on the Dayton side. They sent a drone in back in 2021.

"Once we got back past the initial collapse, we were able to see it's primarily wide open," said Chris Pattison, Project Manager for Friends of Sutro Tunnel Charity. "We found the original historical documents, the historical engineering, and we're rebuilding it in the first alluvial section for the first 500-800 feet based of Adolph Sutro's original plans with new technology, under engineering from Robison Engineering and the construction of Simerson Construction."

Using a device called a turtle, crews are making progress. The team has been able to go back 50 feet so far.

"The Simerson Turtle is able to withstand 20,000 pounds per linear foot of impact pressure," Pattison said. "The workers work underneath the turtle and slide that forward, pull debris and build five-foot sections at a time."

The hope is to go back as far as possible, and eventually open the tunnel up to the public.

"If we can make it back to that 1,500-foot level, could you imagine getting to the dam, a geothermal water supply, an underground lake?" Pattison said. "A chance to be underneath Mount Davidson and Virginia City, so that you could travel back to experience that, maybe have a specialty cocktail in our bar, and be able to support community development and the history and culture of this area."

The nonprofit has been working on the rest of the site as well, trying to preserve this unique piece of Nevada history. For Bill Miles, it's like coming home again. He lived in a Victorian home on the property in 40 years ago.

"In the early 1980s, when I was first married, my wife and I rented the Sutro Mansion, as they called it back then," he said. "We just loved it out here. We did a lot of hiking and walking out here and our first child, my son Daniel, was born at the hospital, but we were living here when we was born."

The Nevada Builders Alliance Foundation is working to restore the old Victorian to its former glory, and volunteers are working on the other buildings and attractions at the site. There are guided tours twice a month, it's open for events, and the goal is to get more people out to appreciate what the area means to the region as a whole.

"It's important for the history of our region that we get people out here to see this renovation of the Sutro Tunnel site," Miles said.

The entire 28-acre site was donated to the Friends of Sutro Tunnel Charity, and there's been no shortage of volunteers to help with the restoration process.

"Every single time we post something on social media, more volunteers sign up," Pattison said. "It's incredible, and especially when you bring folks out here who were here in the 1960s and 1970s, to see that we've been able to take this over and bring it back to life, it's really energized the entire community."

The nonprofit relies on donations to further the project; you can learn more at https://thesutrotunnel.org/