Seattle Underground Tour

Missing image
Seattle_Underground_Tour_01.jpg
A former bank; the vault door is in the background on the right.
Missing image
Seattle_Underground_Tour_02.jpg
Brick arches provide the ceiling for the underground corridors and support the hollow street sidewalks.

The Seattle Underground Tour is a popular tourist attraction in Seattle, Washington's Pioneer Square neighborhood.

On June 6, 1889, most of Seattle's central business district burned to the ground in the Great Seattle Fire. It was decided to rebuild the city one to two stories higher than the original street grade, as Pioneer Square had been built mostly on filled-in tidelands and often flooded; in fact, a nine-year-old boy once drowned in a pothole in Commercial Street, now First Avenue South. The new street level also assisted in ensuring that gravity-assisted flush toilets didn't back up during high tide in Elliott Bay. For a while, merchants carried on business in the lowest floors of buildings that survived the fire, and pedestrians continued to use the underground sidewalks, but in 1907 the city condemned the Underground for fear of bubonic plague. The basements were simply left to deteriorate, or served as storage. In some cases they illegally became flophouses for the homeless, gambling halls, speakeasies, and opium dens.

Missing image
Seattle_Underground_Tour_03.jpg
A doorway and windows formerly at street level.

In 1965, local citizen Bill Speidel realized there might be interest--and profit--in the subterranean ruins. He established "Bill Speidel's Underground Tour," and took paying customers on a tour of what was left underneath Pioneer Square, paying rent to the building owners for the privilege of doing so. He also peppered his tour patter with tall tales from Seattle's history (some more factual than others), giving the tour an amusing counterculture feel that made it an "underground" tour in every sense of the word.

The Underground was featured as the setting of the 1973 TV movie The Night Strangler, although the set designers decided to create a much more photogenic version on a Hollywood sound stage. It was also the setting for an episode of the TV show Scooby-Doo.

Missing image
Seattle_Underground_Tour_04.jpg
A former meat market. The concrete floor was originally at the level of the wooden platform on the left, but sunk over the decades due to the use of sawdust landfill.


Over the years, the tour has become more popular, and the underground structures have been steadily refurbished to be more visually appealing, but it still takes a great deal of imagination and some skillful storytelling to look at rotting sub-flooring and get a real sense of what life was like in old Seattle. Regardless, it remains an extremely popular attraction for visitors and locals alike.

External links

Navigation

  • Art and Cultures
    • Art (https://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Art)
    • Architecture (https://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Architecture)
    • Cultures (https://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Cultures)
    • Music (https://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Music)
    • Musical Instruments (http://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/List_of_musical_instruments)
  • Biographies (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Biographies)
  • Clipart (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Clipart)
  • Geography (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Geography)
    • Countries of the World (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Countries)
    • Maps (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Maps)
    • Flags (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Flags)
    • Continents (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Continents)
  • History (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/History)
    • Ancient Civilizations (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Ancient_Civilizations)
    • Industrial Revolution (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Industrial_Revolution)
    • Middle Ages (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Middle_Ages)
    • Prehistory (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Prehistory)
    • Renaissance (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Renaissance)
    • Timelines (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Timelines)
    • United States (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/United_States)
    • Wars (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Wars)
    • World History (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/History_of_the_world)
  • Human Body (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Human_Body)
  • Mathematics (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Mathematics)
  • Reference (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Reference)
  • Science (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Science)
    • Animals (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Animals)
    • Aviation (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Aviation)
    • Dinosaurs (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Dinosaurs)
    • Earth (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Earth)
    • Inventions (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Inventions)
    • Physical Science (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Physical_Science)
    • Plants (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Plants)
    • Scientists (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Scientists)
  • Social Studies (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Social_Studies)
    • Anthropology (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Anthropology)
    • Economics (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Economics)
    • Government (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Government)
    • Religion (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Religion)
    • Holidays (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Holidays)
  • Space and Astronomy
    • Solar System (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Solar_System)
    • Planets (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Planets)
  • Sports (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Sports)
  • Timelines (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Timelines)
  • Weather (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Weather)
  • US States (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/US_States)

Information

  • Home Page (http://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php)
  • Contact Us (http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Contactus)

  • Clip Art (http://classroomclipart.com)
Toolbox
Personal tools