When Damarya Moody set out to open Corsaro’s Family Pizza in Chowchilla, he thought it was a fresh start.
But the building came with a surprise from the past.
He found an underground tunnel beneath his pizzeria, revealing part of a network that once existed beneath the town.
“(People) hear the stories, but they’ve never been,” Moody said. “So I started actually taking it upon myself to go and put piece(s) together.”
For decades, stories about underground tunnels have floated around Chowchilla, passed down through families, shared between neighbors and debated online. If you ask around long enough, one thing becomes clear: No one seems to have the full story.
The Merced FOCUS asked residents in community Facebook groups what they knew about the tunnels. Within hours, replies started rolling in. Some were vague, and some were oddly specific.
Historical facts versus local legends
Chris Thomas, vice president of the Chowchilla Historical Society, said the reality is more grounded than what the legends suggest.
“It was never a large amount of tunnels,” Thomas said. “Basiclly, it was a system underneath the buildings fronting Robertson Boulevard from Second (Street) down to Third (Street).”
Thomas said alcohol was likely transported between businesses through those tunnels during Prohibition. They were once connected, allowing businesses to move materials without bringing them up to street level.
“They’re all gone.They’ve all been sealed up and filled back in,” Thomas said.
Moody said those stories are part of what makes the tunnels so intriguing, especially as more details about the building’s past continue to surface.
Longtime residents have shared accounts to the pizzeria owner of a shootout that once took place inside the building. They said it involved police and suspects moving through different parts of the property, including areas connected to the underground space.
‘Anything is possible’
While details of the incident remain unclear in public records, Moody said stories like that highlight how much history is tied to the pizzeria.
But stories like that can also get out of hand, Thomas said.
“Over time, it sort of went from, ‘These are the facts,’ to, ‘These are the legends,” Thomas said.
With no clear answers about the underground tunnels, The Merced FOCUS continued searching, trying to distinguish facts from the legends.
Some tips led to buildings across the street from Corsaro’s Family Pizza, where residents said underground tunnels might still remain hidden.
One tip led to Faby’s Barber Shop on Robertson Boulevard, where suspicions spread by word-of-mouth that a tunnel existed beneath the building.
But not everyone who’s looked has found evidence of a tunnel.
“One of my old clients told me that there were tunnels underneath here,” said Fabiola Torres, who owns the barbershop. “But I checked it myself, and it just looks like a basement.”
Looking beneath a section of flooring inside the shop, The Merced Focus did not find a tunnel. But there was space filled with dirt and debris, like something had once been there. When asked if it could be part of the same tunnel system, Thomas didn’t rule it out.
“Anything is possible,” Thomas said.
While multiple entrances to Chowchilla’s tunnels remain difficult to confirm, at least one underground space still exists.
Inside Cosaro’s Family Pizza, a portion of that space remains beneath the restaurant, possibly one of the last visible traces of the town’s tunnel history that hasn’t been completely filled in.
Even now, what exists below continues to be reimagined. Moody said he has considered the possibility of creating something underneath his pizzeria.
“Ideally, I’d love to do a speakeasy,” Moody said. “I can’t say too much right now. But if you know, you know.”
While most of Chowchilla’s underground tunnels may not remain, the stories aren’t going away.