Whit's End Basement

The basement at Whit's End has been a focal point or plot point in many episodes. It can be seen on the cover of Album 56: The Grand Design.

Features

• Whit's extensive workshop
• A secret work closet which contained the body of Spencer Barfield (#39: “The Case of the Secret Room, Part 1”)
• The Underground Railroad tunnel leading from the basement to the woods
• The collapsed tunnel leading from the basement to the rectory
• The Imagination Station has been housed here several times while being repaired (#492: “Twisting Pathway”, #508: “The American Revelation, Part 1”, #509: “The American Revelation, Part 2”)
• Creaky pipes
• A mechanical clown
• Shoulder-height windows in at least one area

History

Before 1850, the building which is now Whit's End was the Odyssey church. Reverend Andrew Jamison ran a part of the Underground Railroad out of the basement of the church. He built two tunnels, one leading from the basement of the church to the rectory where he lived, and one leading from the basement to the woods behind the church. Jamison was shown by the natives how to use a mineral found in the tunnel to create a healing salve. When the church burned down in 1850, the tunnel from the rectory to the basement was partially lost, though it still contained William Ross's map of the Underground Railroad route.

In 1942, as result of joining WWII, Odyssey citizens decided to build a shelter for the city in the end of attack. The Ladies' Auxiliary built the shelter in the municipal park (likely McAlister Park). Because the town's time capsule was buried there, Mayor Charles Donigol decided to re-bury the time capsule in the basement of the Fillmore Recreation Center (formerly the church). It remained there until #631: “A Capsule Comes to Town”, and was re-burried there later.

In 1946, Spencer Barfield was a janitor in the Fillmore Recreation Center, and found Alfred Myers snooping around the basement, which was off-limits to patrons. Later, Alfred Myers tried to hide the $25,000 from the Odyssey Bank robbery in a closet in the basement, and Barfield found him. Myers shot Barfield with a .38 calibre pistol, and left him on a chair in the room, after burying the money. Myers pushed a ceiling-high cabinet in front of the door, which remained there until Whit and Tom Riley moved it and discovered the room behind.

Upon acquisition of the building, Whit locked the exterior entrance to the church-woods tunnel, to prevent people from finding their way into it. The tunnel was kept a fairly guarded secret.

The tunnel was used to enter the building on a number of occasions, including:

• By Whit and Captain Richard Quinn (#169: “Hold Up!”)
• By Dr. Regis Blackgaard, Philip Glossman, Jellyfish, and others (throughout Album 25: Darkness Before Dawn)
• By Jack Allen (#334: “The Final Conflict”)
• Erica Colburn and Novacom thugs (#492: “Twisting Pathway”)
• By Tom, Connie Kendall, and Bernard Walton (#564: “A Most Intriguing Question”)

Historian Carl Ross helped Jack to uncover the second tunnel, which was hidden by dirt with the fire in 1850. Jason Whittaker wished to turn the tunnels into an educational display, and so brought in Professor Bovril and Glossman, who declared the tunnel's mineral to be toxic, and used the city's landowner rights to quarantine the land. Once Blackgaard had control of the area, he began excavating the mineral from the tunnels. Eventually, he detonated a bomb in the rectory tunnel, collapsing it, and causing minimal long-term damage to the structure of the building.

The tunnel was used by Novacom to steal the Imagination Station in #492: “Twisting Pathway”, after Nick Mulligan gave Erica a tour of the basement, and showed her the tunnel.

In #632: “Suspicious Finds”, Dan Daventry declared Whit's End condemned due to the long-term damage caused by Blackgaard's bomb. The Whisperer trapped a number of people in the basement in #635: “Accidental Dilemma, Part 2”, and caused Jason to set off a bomb, which in turn detonated the demolition equipment in the basement. While everyone survived, it is likely that the tunnel to the woods was collapsed, leaving Whit's End currently without any tunnels in the basement. Surprisingly this turned out not to be the case when in Home Again, Part 1 Jason Whittaker meets with his father by entering one of the tunnels.