Upon arriving in Seattle, we only had a few hours to spend there, so we decided to check on the Seattle Underground Tour. This is something that before had only seemed vaguely interesting to me, but the timing was right, and so off we went!
What is the Seattle Underground? Well, probably not what you think; not anymore anyway! On June 6, 1889 (yes exactly 122 years ago that day) A boiling pot of glue in a cabinet shop got turned over and ignited a pile of kerosene-soaked rags...not too big of a deal, but the cabinet shop was next to a munition storage on one side, a liqueur store on the other side, and there was a paint store directly above it...the result? The entire town burned to the ground in 12 hours!
So what makes it an underground? Well, I'm glad you asked! Seattle was originally settled on tide flats...for you southerners...a tide flat is the area of land left uncovered when an ocean tide moves out. (Not a big deal if you are right on the ocean, but in the Puget Sound, where Seattle/Tacoma are located, the tide can leave miles of land uncovered twice a day!) Unfortunately for the original settlers, when they landed in the soon-to-be Seattle, the tide was out! Not being discouraged, they built on the low land areas anyway, seeing a potential for HUGE profits from the 500 yr old trees growing on the ridge, and the benefit of 1 of the only 5 deep-water protected ports in the world to ship them out after they were lumbered... Yet twice a day, the tide came in and wet everything down.
This continual "wetting" was a bother, but the merchants dealt with it in order to reap the profitable benefits. In fact, there is a very good book written about these original settlers and the others who built Seattle. Interestingly enough, it's called Sons of the Profits . (Not Prophets)
This inconvenience was tolerated until Seattle came in need of taking care of its poop. Yes, I said it, Poop. No use beating around the bush, because that's what the problem was all about. Upper-scale houses had been built on the hill, and those houses had installed outhouses...but on the tide flats, you can't dig down, so what do you do with it? Well, lets just say it was a beautiful day when the first toilets (yes, called crappers due to their inventor's name) arrived on the ship! But as they began installing them, the instructions said to hook up to the city's sewer system...Sewer system? Seattle didn't have one! So they quickly created one, and the below 5foot x 5inch wood box was set up as the first sewer in Seattle.
Well, the system drained into Puget Sound...which worked fine until the tide came back in, and pushed pressure, and everything else in the water (including what had been recently flushed into it) backwards into the sewer...needless to say the whole situation STANK!
So...in reality, the fire was actually a good thing! Because it forced the founders to rethink the whole city layout....nothing ever goes as planned, but, what eventually happened was that tons, and tons, and tons of land from the hill (which was actually a 45% grade) was hydro blasted and slewed down Yessler Ave to the lowlands to build them up. The merchants didn't want to wait, however and began rebuilding anyway...yes, right on the tide flats...the city continued to build up the streets, themselves, which resulted in streets being from 10-30 feet above the sidewalks and building main entrances. Here is is picture of the stone wall used to build up the street. (We are standing at the original ground-level door to a hotel) The brick across the top of the picture is the "bottom-level" for the existing sidewalk!
Eventually, the merchants tired of loosing customers (literally) because of the resulting hazards including; Barrels, and crates falling from trucks, the ladder-climb up to the street level, and even drunks leaving bars and falling off the streets to their death (dubbed Seattle's original one-step program). So they concreted the "underground" by building beams into the existing buildings (see pic above) used the original 1st floors as basements, and moved their "front doors" to the 2nd floor...now the street level.
Now there are so many, many, many funny, quirky and just plain fascinating facts about this and the ensuing "underground" that I would highly recommend for anyone in the Seattle area to make a point to take this tour. We had a 11 yr old girl, 14yr old boy, Me, and my Mom there, and we all LOVED it! We are still talking and laughing about it. So here are a few more pics from our Underground experience...
