The underground tour, a 90-minute, tongue-in-cheek look at the
odd history of Seattle’s construction, begins at Pioneer Square, where 19th-century
buildings stand on the original site of the city, dating from the 1860s.
Before then, this area was not land, but water. A few hundred feet from present-day
Pioneer Square was a small island firsE called Denny, then Duwamps Island (after the
Duwamish Indians).
With their eye on possible profits to be made from logging, settlers filled in the bay,
known as Duwamish Bay, turning the island into a peninsula, and changed the name again to
the more appealing Seattle.
The city rapidly grew, much of it on stilts because of continual flooding.
In the filled-in dirt streets, the earth frequently gave way under the weight of heavy
wagons. Huge potholesopened up and usually filled with water. In the late 1800s, the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on a 10-year-old boy who drowned while attempting to
raft across a 12-foot-square pothole, 8 feet deep, at one busy intersection.
Dispensing quirky tidbits like that one, the underground tour guides outline other
significant events in Seattle’s history, including the fire in 1889 that burned the
entire city to the ground in 12 hours and the decision to rebuild the city 8 to 32 feet
higher to avoid flooding and sewage problems (more on that later).
According to local lore, the city fathers decided that it would take too long to fill
the land properly. So buildings came first -- huge brick and stone structures and only
after the city was rebuilt did the fill project begin.
The result was that the first stories of all the buildings were buried. On the
underground tour, visitors are taken through passageways at the city’s original level
where the original entrances to still-existing buildings can be viewed.
Raising the city improved its citizens, lives in two distinct ways -- the city stopped
flooding, and a major sewage problem was corrected.
According to our guide, Seattle had a rather unsettling plumbing problem: Twice each
day, when the tide came in, the toilets overflowed.
Early residents dealt with this problem by the simple expedient of building their
bathrooms on an upper floor to avoid the overflow; most residents became used to climbing
stairs to the elevated “throne room."
Seattle hasn’t done much with its underground other than to let it slowly molder
away. A few relics are still stashed in underground sites, but most are stored in modern
archives or museums. What’s on view in the underground tour is mainly the decrepit
ruins of the original Seattle.
You can’t go there by yourself, by the way. The underground areas were condemned
as unsafe years ago and all entrances are kept locked except to the tour operators.
Above ground, Seattle today is a beautiful city, often likened to San Francisco -- only
cleaner, with more water views and without the need to dodge cable cars at every corner.
It’s the home of the famed Space Needle, a couple of professional sports teams and
the perfect cafe latte. But many visitors to the area discover the dressed-down
sophistication of Seattle to be at its.most charming in Pioneer Square.
Beside the underground tour, there are lots of other ways to enjoy Seattle. Among them:
Take a harbor cruise. Gourmet dinner cruises offer a view of Seattle’s spectacular
nighttime skyline; there are other meal cruises any time of day (at prices ranging from
$22 to $45, senior discounts available).
On other cruises, from two hours to all day, visitors can go whale watching, tour the
locks, view the San Juan Islands or see the towns of Victoria and Vancouver on the
Canadian side of the border.
Go fishing. Sa lmon fishing is tops up here, and there are a number of sports fishing
businesses that will do everything from baiting your line to-filleting the catch.
-- Take a tour. Gray Line-of. Seattle offers a dozen tours, ranging from excursions to
Victoria (from $75 perperson) to a six-hour city highlights tour ($18,.50 for
seniors). Call (800) 426-7532.
To learn more about the underground tour or to make a reservation, call (206) 682-4646.
(Julie Howard is a free-lance writer based in Sacramento, Calif.)
EDITORS: Following are CAPTIONS for PHOTOS with SEATTLE:
The Space Needle stands out in the Seattle skyline. (Photo credit: Nick Gunderson)
Lively street scenes are common in Seattle, which is often compared to San Francisco -but
cleaner. (Photo credit: Nick Gunderson)
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