A while ago I had my first interview for an office job in Fremont. I'd normally take the train but this time I borrowed a car and drove. Took a different route back and spotted brick ruins that looked more like something from Ancient Rome than anything in the earthquake-prone brick-unfriendly Bay Area.

Immediately pulled over some distance away and slid down the embankment from the roadway down to the damp ruin site, fucking up my formal interview shoes in the process and getting my tie snagged on a bush. I didn't want to risk tearing my nice clothes on barbed wire so I went around until I found a hole in the fence where someone had clearly recently entered. Once inside, I found a number of tunnels leading from the brick ruins, built into a cliffside, into the earth. One was full of rather nice suitcases, conjuring mental imagery of some sort of mafia or cartel stash of drugs and money.

Despite my curiosity, the sun was setting, I didn't want to screw up my formal clothes given I had another interview the next day, didn't have a decent flashlight, didn't have much charge in my phone, and I couldn't be late home. So I left without exploring further, but I'll be going back sometime. Apparently the whole thing fell apart in the 1906 quake (brick structure moment) and has been decaying ever since.

Well hell this is interesting! I'd love for you to go back and explore it more. Also, what's in the suitcases! What's in the suitcases?! Like fr, I want to know lol. Thanks for sharing!

So I can provide a few more details on this particular location; I grew up a couple blocks from these ruins and were some of the first things I explored when I was a kid!

These are the ruins of one of the first wineries in Fremont. Founded by the Spanish Missionaries of nearby Mission San Jose, then eventually purchased by a man from Costa Rica, the vineyards stretched 600 acres and produced, at their peak in 1893, over 2,400 tons of grapes.

The brick structure here was built on top of the Hayward fault, an offshoot of the San Andreas fault that runs throughout California. Here, the grapes would be loaded in at the higher elevation in the back of the structure, allowing gravity to do the work of processing the grapes into wine at the bottom of the building. From there, zinfandel would be loaded onto trains facing the front of the building and sent to market.

Unfortunately, like a lot of brick structures built pre-1906, the Great Earthquake destroyed most of the plant, and a couple decades later the company was sold off. The tunnels built into the cliffside were some of the few structurally sound part of the plant to remain.

Really glad you got to go check these out! BART purchased the land a while back and optioned it to build another station between the Fremont and Warm Springs stations, but sadly, that never came to... fruition.

Posted by Wei BART purchased the land a while back and optioned it to build another station between the Fremont and Warm Springs stations, but sadly, that never came to... fruition.

Great -- I mean, grape -- pun

Posted by Joel Also, what's in the suitcases! What's in the suitcases?! Like fr, I want to know lol.

Ikr? Waiting for some spare time to go back and check the tunnels and suitcases out, will update when I do.

hmmmmmm might be another bunker

https://www.nbcbay...nd-bunker/2942690/