Rehabilitated subterranean tunnels beneath downtown Astoria — once central to 19th-century shanghaiing and Prohibition vice — accessed via Astoria Underground Tours from 1125 Marine Drive, investigated by Ghost Adventures in 2018.
1125 Marine Dr, Astoria, OR 97103
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Ticketed guided tours of roughly one hour. See oldastoria.com for current rates and tour schedule.
Access
Limited Access
Underground brick passages on one level rehabilitated for tour use, described as accessible to most ability levels but uneven in places; access to the tunnels begins below sidewalk grade on Marine Drive.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1811 · Astoria Shanghaiing Era · Pacific Northwest Maritime Vice History · Post-1922 Downtown Reconstruction · Adaptive Reuse Subterranean Heritage Site
From the 1870s through the early 20th century Astoria, Oregon was a major Pacific port and a notorious shanghaiing hub. 'Shanghaiing' — the practice of drugging or kidnapping men in port-city saloons and selling them as forced labor aboard outbound sailing ships — was endemic at the mouth of the Columbia River. Astoria's reputation in this era earned it the popular description 'the wickedest city in the world.'
Beneath downtown Astoria's grid of brick buildings — many rebuilt after the Great Astoria Fire of 1922 — sits a network of basements, passages, voids, and infrastructure spaces. Some originated as practical 19th-century basement-to-basement passages connecting saloons, businesses, brothels, and opium dens; others were later reinforced concrete spaces created during downtown reconstruction. The popular 'Shanghai tunnels' framing — purpose-built kidnapping passages — is a 20th-century reframing of this composite infrastructure, similar to Portland's better-known Shanghai Tunnels.
Guides Chad Gallup and Jeff Daly developed the Astoria Underground Tour through rehabilitated sections of the network. The public tour starting point at 1125 Marine Drive descends below the sidewalk into a rehabilitated section featuring restored rooms, artifacts, and theatrical lighting. The tour focuses on Astoria's industrial-and-vice history rather than strictly on paranormal claims, though guides and visitors regularly describe the experience as eerie.
The Astoria Underground appeared on Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures in Season 20, Episode 6 (2018), titled 'Astoria Underground' — a companion episode to the same season's Norblad Hostel investigation.
Sources
Astoria's tunnel network carries its paranormal reputation from the historical record of trauma associated with shanghaiing: men drugged, beaten, kidnapped, and sold to outbound ship captains often disappeared from saloons whose basements connected into the network. According to the Old Astoria Underground Tour and regional reporting collected by Willamette Week and That Oregon Life, guides describe disembodied voices, unexplained footsteps, and brief shadow-figure sightings along the rehabilitated tour route.
The most prominent media coverage is Ghost Adventures Season 20 Episode 6 ('Astoria Underground', 2018), in which Zak Bagans's team conducted an overnight investigation in the tunnels framed around the shanghaiing history. The episode aired as a companion to Episode 7's Norblad Hostel investigation.
Willamette Week's 2024 piece on Astoria's 'darkness at the edge of America' contextualizes the tunnel lore within the broader cultural reputation of Astoria as a historically dark port city. The lore is presented respectfully — the forced-labor history that anchors the paranormal narrative is recognized as a documented crime, not romanticized as colorful local color.
HauntBound presents the entity descriptions and 'unholy presence' framings of TV media as media interpretation rather than independently verified phenomena; the consistent, cross-source elements (voices, footsteps, eerie atmosphere, historically dark anchor event) ground the lore.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Roughly one-hour guided walk through rehabilitated sections of the subterranean network beneath downtown Astoria, conducted by guides Chad Gallup and Jeff Daly. Stops include fully restored rooms where workers once lived and storytelling about Astoria's reputation as 'the wickedest city in the world' during the shanghaiing era. Not strictly a ghost tour, but consistently described in regional press as 'eerie.'
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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