Seattle Underground
Today is a special day. I'm going to break one of my two cardinal rules of blogging. Also, I don't know what a "cardinal rule" is, but it sounds like a bigger deal than a plain old rule. I have a girlfriend. Yeah, I just said that. So if you hear me talking about a girl named Rachel in these posts, it's probably her and not my sister since my sister lives in Toledo. One of these days I'll get a picture of the two of us to post here. Stay tuned. (If you have forgotten the other rule, it is "never blog about work.")
That being said, Rachel and I went on the Seattle Underground tour. It's one of those things that you hear about when you live here, but we had never been on the tour.
The tour starts in Pioneer Square. Since it was a cold/wet Saturday in early April, we didn't expect there to be much of a crowd. Wrong. We got tickets but they sold out our tour. There are three groups every hour all day long and there are 40+ people per group.
The tour starts with a 20 minute talk about the history of Seattle. Did you know Seattle was named after an Indian chief? After the talk, you split up into three groups and go down into some of the underground areas. Here's a brief explanation of how the underground was built:
The original downtown area was wood chip and sawdust landfill from the saw mills. It was right at sea level so it was constantly muddy and flooded. In 1889, a fire destroyed downtown Seattle. Looters headed for the whiskey storage areas, got drunk, and then went to the dynamite storage. They tried to contain the fire by blowing up the buildings around the fire. The only structure that survived was the pier. The next day they decided to push the burning embers into the ocean... right below the pier. The pier burned.
Everyone was eager to rebuild but they weren't really working together. Businesses reopened as fast as they could, but the city wanted to raise the level of the city to avoid the flooding problems. So they city built retaining walls 8-30 feet high where the curb is on a normal street. They filled in the streets with dirt and refuse to raise up the street level. The sidewalks are now 8-30 feet below street level. To cross the street you have to climb a ladder. It's oh so safe considering how many bars there are in that area. Picture walking down the sidewalk from one bar to another and a horse and buggy fall on you. Ouch.
This situation lasted for four years until the city final built sidewalks at street level. The underground sidewalks continued to exist. There were skylights in the sidewalk to light the underground (doesn't work too well in cloudy Seattle.)
These underground sidewalks covered 35 blocks in Seattle. Many of these are still accessible. The tour takes you through a number over these old sidewalks. It's very strange to be underground and see old storefronts with doors and windows.
I've heard that it depends on your tour guide and ours was certainly a character. I'll happily take house guests on the tour. I really enjoyed it. But then again, I'm a little biased towards this stuff. I also enjoy the the History Channel show "Cities of the Underworld." This tour is basically a live version off that show with lots of dry humor thrown in. It's well worth the $14 fee.