Seattle and beyond. Day 17

“Going underground, going underground”, as The Jam has sung many times. We too went underground this morning. Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle was at a much lower elevation until the late 1890s. The Great Seattle Fire of 1889 wiped out 31 blocks, mostly businesses, mostly wooden. Fortunately, nobody was killed, but a decision was made that in future all buildings should be built from brick or stone, and that the street level should be raised.

Pioneer Square had originally been built, to a large extent, on sawdust from the local saw mill. The area flooded often and it was considered that dispersing the unwanted sawdust onto the land would help alleviate the flooding. It did not. Clumpy sawdust pools resulted, causing more problems than the original mud surface, the smell was horrendous and sewage was a problem. The accidental fire gave an opportunity to overcome the problems.

The streets were lined each side with a series of walls and earth was used to infill, raising the level by 12-30 feet. How they infilled the area is most interesting. Parts of Seattle running towards Elliott Bay are very steep. The idea was to wash earth down from the surrounding hillside into the downtown area. Owners of land in the higher ground were paid for their plots, and work commenced.

Earth at the higher levels was washed down to the lower level alongside Elliott Bay. Note some of the buildings awaiting demolition several feet above

Businesses were keen to get started on the rebuilding but many found that when work subsequently commenced on street building, their first and sometimes second floors looked out towards the retaining walls supporting the new road level several feet above.

An image of a lower floor, now underground because the street levels were raised

The lower floors looked out onto the raised street retaining walls, which have more recently been further supported by steel bars in this earthquake zone

To access the buildings people initially had to climb down stairs to those lower floors and climb back when leaving. Eventually a solution was found to produce new sidewalks (pavements) at road level using a series of steel girders, the resulting gap underneath becoming tunnels.

Girders support the sidewalk above. Several tunnels have been turned into cafes, clubs and tourist attractions

Light was let in through glass skylights.

Underneath the glass is bulbous to spread the light

In later years the tunnels were closed for fear of bubonic plague. Some were used for illegal activities, sleeping areas and opium dens. Today they are used for tourist tours, cafes and comedy clubs.

We filled the remainder of our day with a visit to a museum about the effects of the goldrush on Seattle, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Centre. Both very different, but interesting in their own ways.

Our next stop is London after two enlightening weeks we had never expected when originally booking our trip to the Northwest Passage.