Then, on June 6, 1889, a furniture maker left a pot of glue unattended on a stove, which ignited a conflagration which burned wooden downtown Seattle to the ground in a matter of hours. It was a tragedy… but one which actually turned out to be beneficial to the city, because a group of majestic brick and masonry buildings began to be raised in place of the rickety wooden structures that had burned. Then, the citizens decided to try to fix the plumbing while they were at it by raising the ground level up a story, thus allowing room for gravity to work wonders on the pipelines and fix the tide-induced flushing problems. This decision was made after the buildings were already completed – or nearing completion – so the streets were raised up above the ground floor – so that when you wander around Pioneer Square today, you’re actually entering the buildings through the second floor. In order to access the first floor stores, there was a group of subterranean walkways – and these remained open to the public until 1906, when access was closed off… only to be reopened by Bill Speidel for his Underground Tour years later. A great deal of this network of subterranean walkways was destroyed when the Seattle Kingdome was built, unfortunately, but there’s still enough preserved to provide a fascinating view of Underground Seattle.

But enough with my yapping – here are some images I took during the stroll beneath Seattle:

An old steam baths sign greets you as you first descend under the streets.	There are many interesting bits of antique detritus piled up in this subterranean wilderness. Here’s an old gas light fixture.	A long-neglected Turkish Baths sign	I love this picture of an old forgotten ‘Sam’s’ sign.
As you walk along the sidewalks of Pioneer Square, you’ll notice little square pieces of glass on the ground. When you go underground, their purpose becomes obvious: they are original skylights from when the underground was open to the public. Originally, the glass was clear – but they found that perverts would hang out beneath them, waiting for ladies to walk over them, so they changed them to a more opaque, colored glass to prevent this voyeurism.	An old forgotten door…	A rather creepy looking old doorway…	Didn’t this picture turn out perfectly Ghostly??? I love it…
Here’s an old abandoned (I hope!) toilet… I found it funny because it symbolizes the entire reason for the underground.	Another creepy doorway… obviously, I must find them fascinating, for some odd reason…	The Underground Beckons… (Pretentious subtitle du jour!)	Here’s a bit of the original wooden pipes that caused so much grief in old Seattle.

Because the conditions for photography on this day weren’t ideal, I decided to purchase a collection of Pioneer Square prints that provide a much more attractive overview of the area:

This is the entrance to the Underground Tour in Pioneer Square. Bill Speidel felt the Underground Tour would save Pioneer Square and it worked. In 1970, Pioneer Square became Seattle’s first historic district.	The tour begins at Doc Maynard’s historic bar. The bar you see in this picture was manufactured over a hundred years ago in Chicago and travelled here by ship around Cape Horn to Seattle.	A picturesque dusty corner of the old Moses Korn Mercantile Emporium, one of the subterranean stops on the Underground Tour.	A better-lighted shot of the old toilet.	Undergound windows peering out to underground sidewalks. These windows brought in daylight until the streets of Seattle were raised making the ground floor the underground floor, and the second floor became ground level.
Looking up at the original skylights in the sidewalk…	The subterranean passageways of Seattle’s Underground became a haven for bootleggers, smugglers and tourists – not to mention a few rats, of course.	One of the saddest stories I heard was regarding this beautiful old Pergola that stood in Pioneer Square from 1909 until 2001 – when an idiotic semi-truck driver misjudged his turn and took down the entire structure.	The Pergola is being rebuilt – and hopefully a great deal of the original structure can be used to raise it again to its former beauty – as seen above.  UPDATE: Wayne from Seattle has informed me that the Pergola is “back in all its glory”! Hurray!	Here’s the Tlinget totem pole – another historic Seattle structure – with the top of the Smith Tower behind it.

I also took a shot of the totem pole while I was there. In true Seattle style, the pole wasn’t given to the city – it was stolen from a Tlinget camp by city representatives on a goodwill trip to Alaska. Seattle was a town founded by scoundrels, and you hear lots of stories about them during the tour. Very entertaining, indeed! Here’s another shot of Smith Tower – the building you see poking above Pioneer Square in the postcard images above. Pioneer Square is an extremely lovely area of the city and one that I really need to go back to again. There just wasn’t enough time on this trip to do all the exploring I desired…

“Sometimes when people come to Seattle, I take them on what I call a walking tour of the town. It goes something like this. We drive to the Seattle center and park. Many times you can find free parking nearby. We take a walk around the center to warm up. Then on to the monorail for a quick ride to Westlake Center. We head west to Pike Place Market, aka Public Market, Farmer’s Market. When I was a kid in the 1950’s my grandmother often did some of her shopping here and sometimes we’d go with her. Later on my own I explored all the hidden places. Unlike today, the smells would make your head spin. Not from stink, but from the wonderful aromas. Just like today they did the fish throw. In the late 60’s and into the late 70’s you could hardly walk 10 feet without running into street musicians. There are few nowadays. We just cover the upper level on this part of the walk and don’t buy things we are going to have to carry. We get them on the way back.

“It’s out onto 1st Av and head south. It’s easier walking downhill. While there isn’t a lot to look at, it is fun to pop into some of the shops and see what you can find. Keep walking and on the Westside you’ll pass the federal building. Look close on the Northeast corner of the building and you’ll see a placard. It’s where the Great Seattle fire started. You’ll also notice on your walk down what looks like soda bottle bottoms in the sidewalk. Keep them in mind. When you get to Pioneer Square, find and take the underground tour. On the tour you’ll see the soda bottle bottom once more – this time from the bottom side.

“After the tour, take time to explore the shops in Pioneer Square. A lot of money has gone into the area to bring it back from the old days when they would have been torn down. Ready for something to eat? Well head on over to the waterfront. There are many places to eat, but Ivar’s was the first and to me the only place to eat. Now comes the time to walk it off. Head north along the waterfront. There’s more shops and little hidden places to explore. There’s no way around it. If you see something you want to buy, you’re going to have to carry it, all the way back.

“OK, now we’re on the backside of Pike Place and look at all those stairs. Don’t worry, about half-way you can take the elevator to the lower level of the market, but you will have to walk to the upper level. Now’s the time to buy what you wanted when you started your walk. You’ve got one more small hill to climb, heading back to Westlake Center and the monorail.

“If you want to see more and don’t want to have to walk up and down hills, head for Ballard. If you drive up Elliott Av. (North) before you cross the Ballard Bridge, you can stop at Fisherman’s Terminal. Not much going on there except during Fishing Season. Late spring and summer are best. You can keep heading North across the Ballard Bridge to Market Street. Turn left (west) and follow it to the locks. During spring and summer, you can watch boats come and go through the locks and you can watch the salmon returning to spawn.

“There’s a lot of history here, not just in Seattle, but many other places around here. Next time you come to Seattle allow as much time as you can to explore.”