U N D E R G R O U N D

You can’t visit Seattle without having a look at where it all began—beneath the streets of Pioneer Square.

Pioneer Square, where the tour starts.

The original Seattle was built on a tidal flat. After a while, daily visits from the ocean got old and they jacked the city up. The story behind this is incredible and the tour of the underground sidewalks is fascinating.

A bit of the underground.

The tours were begun as a publicity stunt to help raise awareness and money for the refurbishment—instead of the destruction—of the historic heart of the city. Today, the tour is one of the city's most popular tourist attractions.

Believe it or not, Seattle's first toilets figure
hugely into the raising of the city.

The ticket price is $11 (that’s just £5.50) a head, but it’s worth it just to listen to the twenty-minute standup routine history lesson at the start of the tour. The guides are knowledgeable and have a knack for pointing out noteworthy oddities and keeping the banter interesting, yet child-friendly. Jerry, our guide, talked of the many ‘seamstresses’ Seattle used to employ and how sailors from all over the world would visit them when their ships docked, presumably to have some tailoring done. The tip jar at the end of the tour was, he assured us, not for the guides, but for us, so we could achieve closure. How thoughtful.

Our tour guides, Jerry and Terrilyn.

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