Taking A Tour Of Underground Seattle

In the late 1880s, what has become known as the Great Seattle Fire destroyed more than thirty blocks of urban buildings. The fire had spread so fast and done so much damage for two main reasons, firefighting abilities of the time were more limited and most of the city's buildings were made out of wood. Seattle's city leaders insisted from that point on that all buildings would be made of stone or brick. Since the city had been build on the low tidelands next to Puget Sound, the city leaders made one other crucial decision, they regraded the streets so that in various places the land was raised one to two stories higher than it had been before the fire. The immediate areas around the preexisting buildings was eventually filled in, sealing off these former ground floor level storefronts and making them in effect unused basements to the new buildings that were built above on what was the new ground level. What was the sidewalk area of the now underground streetfront continued to be used during this time but was eventually condemned and sealed off in the early 1900s. A colorful time in Seattle began to flourish in these new hard to find underground sections of the city that included flophouses, prostitution, opium dens, and speakeasies.

Bill Speidel started Seattle's Underground Tour.

The Seattle Underground Tour was started in 1965 by a local newspaper journalist named Bill Speidel. Bill was a columnist for the Seattle Times. Once he received a letter inquiring about Seattle's underground past under Pioneer Square, one of Seattle's oldest neighborhoods. He researched it and consulted with those who knew about the city's colorful history. A few days later he arranged with the property owners to give guided tours under the current businesses. The more Bill learned about Seattle's underground, he reported about it to the local newspapers including the Seattle Times. Soon there were 300 letters to Bill asking if he could give an underground tour of this mysterious place. In a separate incident, there was a petition of 25 people to City Hall claiming that topless girls had to wear tops. Bill thought to himself that if 25 people petitioned to get tops on girls, surely 300 petitions could establish Seattle's underground (Pioneer Square) to be registered as a historic site. In May 1965, Bill started giving some public tours of the place. In 1970 20 blocks of Pioneer Square were designated as a Historic District by the Seattle City Council. The tours have become famous and many say that it is a definite must-see attraction when visiting Seattle. Over time more and more of the underground areas have been refurbished and access to them has been improved so that the tour can both be more impressive and accessible to tourists of all sorts.

Because of deterioration of the buildings and safety issues, visitors need to realize that the tour does not stretch a great distance once the underground levels are reached. The tour guides have great knowledge to share with their guests and the history visitors learn here will largely be unlike anything learned any where else in the city. Many tourists visiting the Seattle Underground Tour comment on how odd it is to see such fine crafted wood carvings and stonework in a part of the city that has not seen the light of day in more than one hundred years. The tour generally lasts well over an hour and between what can be seen underground, the stories told by the tour guides, and the visitor's imagination, a great time can be had in this truly unique attraction.

Today the price for the tour goes around $15, but it changes depending on the calendar date. To get more information on the Seattle Underground tour, you can visit the link.

Taking the Seattle Underground Tour is one of the more highly recommended activity for people visiting the city for the first time. The tour offers the chance to take some amazing photographs and come away with some incredible historical stories that cannot be duplicated in many other cities. Because of both the historical content and the mystique of a hidden underground world, the tour entertains visitors of all ages. Visiting the Seattle Underground Tour is a great choice for anyone lucky enough to pay a visit to Seattle, Washington. So come and visit Seattle.

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