The earth began to open up on Burlington’s Tracy Drive about 10 years ago. One man fell into a waist-deep hole. Another stuck his leg into a hidden depression while mowing his lawn. A woman tending a flower bed tipped over when the grass gave way beneath her.
“She thought she’d fallen into a rodent den,” said Mark Sisock, who’s lived on the road for about four years.
All told, residents have found a handful of the mysterious openings in this New North End neighborhood. One woman is “terrified” to walk across her lawn lest it open up, according to Sisock.
He discovered his own recently as he walked across his yard. The ground sank about three inches, even though it hadn’t rained in weeks.
“I got a four-foot wooden stake, and the darn thing went right through!” Sisock said.
Fully uncovered, the holes are about six-by-six feet and about the same depth – “like a freshly dug grave site, with the corners pretty intact,” Sisock said. They were covered with old wooden railroad ties and topped with soil and grass.
Sisock contacted city officials, who didn’t have much advice or information because the hole was on private property. The city’s principal planner, Mary O’Neil, provided Seven Days with a plat drawing of the street, which was filed by developer Silas Tracy in 1953 and showed dozens of lots along the roadway. O’Neil also sent old newspaper clippings and advertisements offering the ranch-style homes for sale.
Tim Kane, a retired contractor who has lived on Tracy Road for 22 years, thinks he’s solved the mystery. The pits were likely dry wells meant for “gray water” — the stuff that drains out of sinks and bath tubs. But, shortly after they were dug, the city came through and put in sewer lines for the new neighborhood, Kane said, making the wells obsolete. Rather than fill them in, the developer just covered them up, Kane said.
Now, some 70 years later, the railroad ties are starting to rot — and people are falling in.
Sisock’s won’t be a problem for much longer. He’s hired a contractor to open up his hole, fill it with dirt and level it off.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Sinking Feeling”
This article appears in Sep 17-23 2025.
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