Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1909-05-07
WILL MEET IN 1929.
REUNION FEAST PLANNED 20
YEARS IN ADVANCE.
Tunnel Engineers Who Worked To-
oether on Big Gotham Bore Give
Word to Be on Hand If Alive
and Able to Travel Then.

New York.-At ten o'clock in the
morning, March s. 1929, there will as
semble at the corner of Fourth avenue
and Thirty-third street, New York (if
Enckes comet hasn't put that corner
and the rest of this old planet out of
existence before that time) something
less than 40 men.
There won't be 40. All of the two
score who have agreed to meet are
sure to have many wanderings in these
next 20 years. and some will have
wandered across that border line which
is never recrossed. But every man has
given his word that If he is alive and
able to travel he will be there for the
anniversary dinner Of Mike Quinn's
sand hog" bosses.
These "sand-hog" bosses are the
civil engineers who have had charge of
the construction of the Pennsylvania
railroad tunnel under the East river.
One day not long ago they saw the
last carload Ut rock from the big bor-
ing dumped. and knew their job was
DONE Friday evening. March 5,
they sat down to a dinner to-
gether, and at the close of the dinner
they babe each other good-by and
made the agreement to meet again at
a dinner in Just 20 years.
These men were all strangers when
they started in on the Job. Three years
they worked together, and three years
daily association is bound to get a
bunch Of good fellows pretty well ac-
quainted. They got along together
beautifully, too, and Quinn, chief of
the engineers, tells why.
'At the outset we got together" he
says, "and decided to settle all dis
putes among ourselves. None of us
ever carried complaint to the head
Office. II there was any argument over
the way piece of work was done, we
had it out on the spot down there in
the hole, and not word Of the mat
ter ever reached the ears of the off,
GERS Of the company"
And SO they got along very nicely.
They had some good times down in
the hole, too" Fred Marshall, six feet
two, once an athlete at Georgetown
university, allowed he was the best
boxer in the crowd. Frank Bixby,
graduate of New York university,
thought he could give him an argu-
ment. He did, but Marshall was the
better man.
There were some of the men who
started in on the job three years ago
and quit before It was finished. They
also are invited to the anniversary din
ner. Two Of these are Jack Young and
Roscoe Phelps. graduates of the Case
School of Applied Sciences, at Cleve-
land, who left some months ago. They
announced when they left that they
were going to make a walking trip
to San Francisco. Phelps was later
heard from in Cleveland and Young in
British Columbia.
No man will miss this anniversary
dinner because Of the lack of funds
wherewith to buy railroad ticket 1t
has been agreed that, some weeks In
advance Of the anniversary dinner
those who are In good circumstances
will register their names and ad-
dresses with the Scientific American
Any fellow who hasn't the price of a
ticket from wherever he Is to New
York, can get 1t by writing to the mag
aZine.
Widely will their paths diverge. Rob
erts, first assistant to General Superin-
tendent Quinn, goes to Panama; Van
Wagner. Dutchman, is going to To
kyo; Talbot, the only Englishman in
the lot. has sailed for home; Steinfeldt,
Norwegian, thinks he will return to
the sea; he used to be first mate on
a sailing vessel; Gibbons goes to Win
nipeg, to work for the Canadian Pa.
cific.
Twenty years from now-how many
men will gather at the corner of
Fourth avenue and Thirty-third street
for "auld lang syne?"