Iowa City mapping beer caves with new technology

IOWA CITY - If you've strolled down Iowa City's Linn Street, near Devotay Restaurant & Bar and La James spa and salon, a fascinating piece of the community's history has been right under your feet.

And a group of researchers want you to know it.

So on Monday, crews lowered laser-scanning technology down a 25-foot-deep hole to take 3-dimensional images of Iowa City's historic beer caves in hopes of creating a virtual reality of the hidden landscape.

Information gleaned from what remains of the beer caves beneath Brewery Square, at 123 N. Linn St., will be used in UI classrooms, to educate the community and maybe for public tours, said Mark L. Anderson, a research specialist with the Iowa Society of the Archaeological Institute of America.

'People are really interested in archaeology, and it's an easy sell,” Anderson said. 'But it's important that we sell it. Archaeology is so heavily funded by the public through various laws and regulations … So we as archaeologists and historians and other researchers really, really feel it's super-important to inform our constituents of the really cool stuff right beneath their feet.”

The scanning technology being used for the new mapping is known as LIDAR - or Light Detection And Ranging.

LIDAR is a remote-sensing method that uses light - a pulsed laser - to measure 'both natural and man-made environments with accuracy, precision and flexibility,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The three-dimensional renderings anticipated from the scans of Iowa City's beer caves will be the first of their kind in the state, Anderson said.

'It may be the first time for really any kind of brewing-related cave structure like this,” Anderson said.

Defunct beer caves exist statewide - including in Cedar Rapids - but because none has been imaged using the new technology, questions remain around the caves' exact size, location and makeup.

Anderson said LIDAR 'offered us the first opportunity to be able to really image, in a 3-dimensional way, something you can put on a 3-D screen and actually rotate.”

Iowa's beer caves date back to the 1850s when breweries were popping across the state. Prohibition ushered in the beginning of their end, and most breweries were razed between 1940 and 1960, according to the Office of the State Archaeologist.

Two of the three breweries in Iowa City, City Brewery and the Great Western Brewery, were torn down by the early 1960s. The third, formerly the Union Brewery, was restored in 1985 and became the Brewery Square Building now owned by developer Marc Moen.

Moen has worked with Marlin Ingalls, at the state archaeologist's office, to undertake further exploration - hence the use of LIDAR mapping.

'We don't know exactly where this is under the streets,” said Adam Skibbe, GIS administrator for the UI Department of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences, while setting up LIDAR equipment 25 feet underground in one of the caves on Monday.

With the help of other UI and state researchers, Skibbe said he's eager to determine the cave's precise size, depth and location.

'It will be really neat when it's all said and done,” he said.

UI senior Chris Watland, a GIS major and member of a student geography organization, also climbed down into the caves Monday to observe and learn.

'I had no idea,” he said. 'It's just so cool how much history is hidden beneath Iowa City that I never knew of before.”

As a student, Watland said, he's looking forward to the 3-D modeling and research potential.

Anderson, with the Iowa branch of the Archaeological Institute of America, said future commercialization - like public tours and special events - will depend on the building owners and 'what they feel is viable.”

'They're underground and, as noted, there are serious considerations about access and safety,” he said. 'It would be quite an endeavor, not impossible, but it would take quite a bit to be able to do some kind of publicly accessible version.”

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