Alfred Ely Beach was nothing if not slick. He was certain that an underground train would be very practical, and would not let a little thing like lack of political support stop him. So he took $350,000 of his own money, and obtained permission from the city of New York to excavate a tunnel for two small tubes for a pneumatic “package delivery” service. Then he obtained permission to expand the size of that tunnel, ostensibly to simplify construction for the tubes. In their stead, he built a compressed air-powered passenger wagon.

On this day, February 26, in 1870, the 300-foot Beach Pneumatic Transit line opened to the public as a demonstration of the possibility of a real subway ride. Passengers embarked on the train, rode down to the end of the tunnel and then reversed course back to the station. Not very exciting, but it sold 11,000 tickets in just two weeks, and 400,000 before the end of the year.

Beach proved his concept, but the mechanics of pneumatic power were overtaken by the development of electricity almost right after his demonstration. New York began a city-wide subway construction project, and the Beach transit line was completely forgotten until 1912, when workers entered the tunnel and re-discovered the wooden remains of the train car. Today, a plaque stands in honor of Beach in the City Hall station, just across from where he built his famous tunnel.