Seattle Underground I

Seattle has an interesting history. Because the original streets were basically built on filled-in swamps, after the big Seattle Fire the town decided to raise the streets and sidewalks, in some places 30 feet higher than original. This was also to help with sewage drainage. As a result, many of the structures that survived the fire were now faced with using their former second stories as the ground floor, and the former main street-level entrances were now underground. In 1965, an entrepreneur created a tour of the underground area around Pioneer Square. This photo shows some of the old construction rubble discovered when he was reopening the area.