Seattle Underground Tour

After the Aquarium I was walking back to the light rail station in Pioneer Square, the original center of the city. I had heard about the tour of Seattle's underground, and decided to go on it since it was starting in 2 minutes. In 1889, there was a massive fire that burned down 32 city blocks of the central business district of the time. At the time, the buildings were not very high above the water level, and the roads were incredibly poor. This prompted the city to build up the streets and buildings one story or about 12 feet. The city said it would take about 5 years to rebuild the 32 blocks that burned along with new roads, but the businesses were not happy with that answer since they had just lost their only source of revenue. Since the city only owned the streets and sidewalks, the business owners went right ahead and rebuild their stores at the same time the city was building up the streets. Well this caused a slight problem as the store fronts (on the sidewalk) were 12 feet below street level, and to cross the street you had to go up and down ladders at each corner of the street. The city's solution was to build the new sidewalk at street level, but put glass in to allow light to reach the original sidewalks 12 feet below. Today some of the original sidewalks are available, most have been turned into extended basement storage for the businesses there today.

The first 3 pictures are in the original first floor of a general store of the time.

These are the windows that would have looked out into the street, now it is just the side of the new street.

This is from a butcher shop on the block. The floor is collapsing on itself, which is common for most of the original floors of the time. Being so close to the waterfront, the businesses had to build up above water level. Since dirt was not easy to come by, they often used garbage or sawdust, which were very easy to come by in a lumber community.

Collapsing floor.

When the city finally put the sidewalks at the new street level, they build brick archways between steel beams for support.

Each block has a few glass inlays to allow light into the original sidewalk spaces. 

Around the time of the fire, there was also a gold rush in the Northwest. Once prospectors found gold, it was not always safe to carry it around the streets, so they took their gold into the underground sidewalks. One bank build a vault in the underground so the prospectors could deposit their gold without walking around with it for so long.

This is the Smith Tower which was built in 1914, and was the tallest building west of the Mississippi until 1931.

Pioneer Square before the fire

Since the sewage system was not designed well in Seattle, running water was a problem in the city. High tide came in two times a day and would engulf the drainage pipes that led to the water, causing sewage backups in homes. For years, people had charts of when the tide was high and low to determine when they could flush their toilets. The solution: the Crapper Valveless Waste Preventer.