By STAN STAPP

It was only a little hole when I first noticed it, right in the middle of Ravenna Blvd. at 16th NE. This was 43 years ago, Nov. 11, 1957, to be exact.

As then-publisher of the Outlook, I used to drive by there every day on my way to work, mainly to pick up a young man I'd recently hired as a "printer's devil." He lived near the cave-in, and it was no trouble giving him a ride.

(I knew he had a police record when I hired him - 300 stolen cars as a kid - and I was hoping I could help him "Go Straight." But he was soon into trouble again, stealing cash from the Outlook and another car. This time he was sentenced to "not more than 10 years" in the Monroe Reformatory.)

The following day I noticed the hole was getting bigger and City Engineers had begun dumping dirt in it. But it didn't help. A day or two later the hole began eating things - first sucking down a large chestnut tree, and later a street light standard. Engineers knew then that a major break must have occurred in the North Trunk Sewer Line 145 feet below ground. The sewer there was 72-inches in diameter, and had served the city well for half a century.

We first reported the goings-on in the Nov. 14 Outlook, with two photos by Phil H. Webber, P-I/Outlook photographer and '57 Lincoln High graduate.

By now the crater was 60 by 90 feet wide, and 40 feet deep. Nine homes and one 5-unit apartment on the Boulevard were endangered and the owners were beginning evacuation. Delta Sigma Phi fraternity men and other UW students helped load their household possessions into moving vans - going to where, I do not know.

Gas mains were breaking, leaving some homes without heat or cooking; smoking was banned in the area; and sidewalks were caving in. No spectators were allowed between 15th and 17th NE. At midnight, water from manholes flooded the streets at NE 52nd and Ravenna Ave. At 1:05 a.m., the flood extended to 30th NE and Union Bay Place NE flooding the Carnation Company parking lot. At 1:45 a.m., half of Roosevelt Way NE was blocked off, with the likelihood that the other half would be blocked by morning.

City Engineering crews and other workmen were fighting rainy weather and crumbling sand in a day and night struggle to solve the dilemma. John Marshall Junior High (now an alternative high school), at 520 NE Ravenna Blvd., was inundated with water from the plugged-up sewer line, four feet deep in the basement.

The next day, Green Lake had risen seven inches from backed-up sewage and water - the three lake outlets to the sewer system having become inlets. Manholes to the west of the cave-in were also pouring out sewage. There was some speculation that the sewer had been weakened by the 1949 earthquake. (In fact, we printed the photo of a large "crack" in the path around the west side of Green Lake that was perhaps 20 feet long and three feet wide.)

Plans were to pump out the remaining sludge and water into the open creek flowing through the Ravenna Park Ravine, until a drainage line could be installed there. The hole by now was 60-feet deep (with water 50-feet deep), 200 feet long, and 120 feet wide.

Over 200 men were now on the job, some of them laying 5,400 feet of pipe for the Cowen/Ravenna Park by-pass. Large crowds, police, and popcorn wagons were at strategic spots for viewing the operation. One day a curious Scotty dog fell in the hole. Addison Berry, work crew superintendent, went over the side on a rope and rescued him.

By Dec. 3, 1957, filling of the big hole was virtually completed and residents began moving back into their homes. From then on, for nearly two years, workmen repaired the break and relined the entire sewer (a mile long and six feet in diameter). Their underground transportation was an electric golf cart which putt-putted back and forth with men and materials.

After completing the reconstruction, and before letting the water and sewage flow again, the City Engineers decided to give the sewer a final test. They invited city officials and the press to tour the newly renovated sewer, including myself and fellow Outlook staffer Carl Bengtson. They were pretty sure that if they counted how many people entered the sewer caisson at Brooklyn Avenue, and compared it with how many emerged at NE 54th, they could consider it was no longer plugged.

As I was preparing to enter a manhole and descend the 73-foot ladder down to the sewer line, I casually remarked to a bystander: "Well, I guess it must be safe enough, I see the Mayor's going along."

"That doesn't prove anything," the spectator retorted, "of all the people, the Mayor doesn't know what's going on with this town." (He was referring to Gordon S. Clinton, popular enough to serve two terms as Mayor.)

Thus assured, I gingerly started down the ladder, being careful that photographer Phil Webber did not step on my fingers from above, and equally careful that I didn't tromp on Assistant City Engineer Jim Robertson's fingers below me. All went well except for the one occasion when I stepped on Robertson's head. At the bottom I was handed a Coleman lantern with which to lead the last group of a half dozen men through the 3,500-foot section of the sewer. I was praying that the Engineer in charge of letting the water and sewage back in would not get his days mixed-up - and drown us all like a pack of sewer rats.

But he didn't - and we found the sewer to be remarkably clean, with only occasional spots of water and sand, and a few cigarette butts. The lining was concrete "spliced" together about every 10 feet.

We all crouched to a certain extent, the interior diameter being 5-feet, 6-inches. I know that is the right figure, because every time I stood up, my orange helmet scraped the ceiling. I was 5-feet 6-inches at the time, but only 5-feet -3 now.

Shouts and whistles seemed to shoot down the sewer ahead of us, possibly clear to the other end two-thirds of a mile away. Our little trek was on a steady 2.6 percent down grade, and in a straight line. Several times though, members of the party called for a rest, much to my surprise, for I hadn't realized that some found this trip more of an undertaking than they'd originally imagined.

By the time we emerged at the other end, and climbed the 50-foot ladder at NE 54th and Ravenna Ave., most of the walkers had sweat pouring off their brows. (If they thought that was something, they ought to try kicking up their heels doing 44 folk dances in an evening - which I was then doing on a regular basis.)

City Engineer, Row W. Morse, described the cave-in as the worst utility disaster in Seattle history, creating an emergency "second only to the Big Seattle Fire of 1889."

When I wrote about it in my Lookout column in the Outlook (Nov. 5, 1959) I concluded: "Everyone seemed to think the $2 million sewer reconstruction was a good job, and well worth the money. But frankly I'm going to have to accept the word of the Engineers. The Ravenna Sewer, as I saw it, was nice and clean and neat, and big and long - but as to whether it will hold up for a week, or 100 years, don't quote me."

They seem to have been right, though. That was 41 years ago and the Ravenna Sewer is still working great.