There are steam tunnels that run throughout the campus, but they do not provide passageway. Most have parts that require those servicing the steam system to crawl; none is sufficient to allow one to walk upright along its full length. The only access to the tunnels is through designated manholes. There is no tunnel that links the hill to the river, and no on-campus tunnel was utilized as a portion of the Underground Railroad by slaves going north at the time of the Civil War. The often repeated assertion that administrators are allowed to travel through the tunnels during inclement weather while students are not is not true.
A plan was advanced in 1972 to create a Life Sciences Complex on the Hill by linking buildings with tunnels, followed by creation of a Physical Sciences Complex similarly linked. The only tunnel to be built was that between Austin Peay and Hesler.