Seattle Trip - Day 4 - A Day in Seattle, WA

Getting ready for the day..
Since it was suppose to be overcast and rainy out all day (what a shocker, huh?), we decided that today would be a great day to do the Bill Speidel's Underground Tour. We started off the tour in Doc Maynard's Public House, which is a restored 1980's Saloon. Dominique the guy who did the intro for the tour was quite funny. It was interesting to hear about how the city was developed. And what they had to deal with during and after the great fire of 1889. Ironically a few weeks before the great fire this picture was taken of what was Seattle.
Prior to the flood the city was really at or below sea level, which lead to a few interesting dynamics. The first was that depending on the tide the street would either be dry or wet. This resulted in several pot holes through out the town. According to our guide the largest of these pot holes was 20' x 18'. Besides the water another contributing factor to these large potholes was due to the fact that the city is basically built on the mud flats. Over several years what they did was build up the land by adding sawdust from the lumber mills to the mud. So as you can probably guess the foundation was not all that great especially when they generally have low and high tide several times a day.

One of the things that Seattlites were super excited about back in the day was the invention of the toilet. I'm sure you've heard how it was invented by John P. Crapper. Although that sounds a lot funnier the inventor of the toilet was Thomas Crapper. So now you know how the term crapper came into existed. Like I said this was a super exciting invention for them, however you are probably wondering why it was such a great invention.....

This explanation takes a little imagination. Envision rows and rows of out houses lined up on a street in the city. As you all probably know an outhouse is just a small building essentially covering a hole in the ground. Well as I stated before the tide fluctuates a lot in Seattle. So what inevitably happened on a regular basis was the tide would rise up, empty out the outhouse holes, and deliver the human byproduct to the streets of Seattle. Pretty Gross Huh?!?!?! Now you see why they were so excited about the invention of the toilet.

With that said there are a few more details to the toilet story that bears repeating. Their first sewer system was designed with wooden pipes. Not the best nor most efficient system ever. And as they expanded the system they didn't really modify it just added on, so there was no consideration for how the system was going to handle the additional capacity. Ultimately this new system failed... If the timing was just right when you flushed your toilet instead of the water and waste leaving it would become a fountain a filth that erupted like a geyser. Yet again GROSS!!!!

When the Great Fire of 1889 happened they were able to re-plan and develop the city. However this second building of the city was not that great of a success. Most of the building were required to be made of brick and the street level was higher than the brick moat type thing that was around each building. In order to address the issue of how do you get from one business to the one across the street the city officials provided ladders at each street corner.
This was fine in theory. However many people were hurt and died due to the store front being 12-14 lower than street level. Many intoxicated individuals would inadvertently fall over the edge and perish. Their death certificates would indicate cause of death as accidental suicide. HMMM... that one is a bit confusing. Ultimately what happened is that the city decided that everything needed to be at street level and this resulted in unused passages under the streets of downtown Seattle. The next two pictures are taken underground looking up at the street through these prismatic skylights. It was really interesting to realize that there were people walking overhead completely oblivious to the fact that we were down below.
Here is the vault door of an old bank that use to be a part of old Seattle.

And I'm not really sure what this room is for, but I'm guessing this is the time-out corner.
The various sections of the underground system are not connected, so this required us to walk up top at street level to access the various sections. Here we are walking on one of those prismatic skylights that I pointed out earlier.
This is another section of the underground. This was a door that was leftover from the days when this section was a store.

Here's our tour guide Jake. If you look at the picture of the building to his left, I'll point out a few things. This is a picture of one of the original brick buildings. After the Great Fire of 1889 when it was required for the buildings to be built out of stone or brick. If you look closely at the picture you will see the front door in the center. If you look at the top of the door there is a definite line that seems to go around the whole building, this is the top of the first floor. This section is no below street level. Kind of weird huh? The room that we are currently in was essentially the area right outside that front door.
Here are just some random items that remain from that era that are in the rooms that we walked through on our tour.
More random items lining the walls of the underground room...
And yet more random objects...
Not really sure what this is, but it was down there and I thought it was interesting so I snapped a shot of it.
Back in the 1960's when this tour began there really was no such thing as historic preservation. Looking out of his office window one day he was appalled at what he saw. In the place of a gorgeous hotel now stood a parking garage that looks like a hideously sinking ship. Bill Speidel then came up with the idea to draw attention to the area by creating the underground tour. He though that he would be lucky if he got 30 people interested in the tour when he first opened it, but 30 people who appreciated the idea of preserving history was better than nobody appreciating. To his surprise over 300 people showed up on the first day that the tours were opened. He charged each of them $1 at the end of the tour and had them sign a petition to preserve the downtown district as a historic landmark. And it worked!!!

These weird statues were downtown so I couldn't help myself, I just had to make the girls pose with them.
Fortunately they are good sports and did just that.
This is cool little sitting area in downtown Seattle. It is a nice tranquil place to just sit and relax.
Well at least try to sit and relax, but there was a lot of distracting city noises.
Yup, that's my kid the one that looks all full of teen angst. :-)
Here we are at the Klondike museum. Jessi is trying to see if she would hit gold on the Wheel of fortune.
No such luck she didn't get the gold.
Here is Melanie spinning the same wheel. Although it looks like she got on the gold, no such luck. It just happened to be a picture that was taken with good wheel spinning timing.
It's hard to see, but Jessi would be worth over $1.5 million if she was made of gold.
Here is Melanie lighting up the city.
Here's where the Mariners play ball.
Down at pier 54 we decided to stop for lunch at Ivars. The food was yummy, but...
the desert was simply amazing. The item in the background was a peach cobble and the one in the foreground was a chocolate cake. The cake was made of German chocolate, ganache, mousse, and sitting in a lake of the most delicious caramel sauce I've tasted in a long time.
I just had to put this up here, because it is an utter fail. Those are peanuts in the top one, not bones. I'm guessing there was a bit of a mix up in the peanut packing plant.
We decided to end our day downtown taking a harbor cruise. Here are the girls right after we boarded the ship. Our ships name was the Spirit of Seattle.
Here are just some random shots of the Seattle skyline...
This shot is obviously of the Space Needle, but in the foreground is the building on pier 70 which was home to the MTV series the Real World for one season.
And we will now continue with more random Seattle skyline pics...
Here is Jessi staring off into the water. I think they were trying to see more jellyfish.Here are the girls posing infront of the ferry that was also out on the water. The water got a bit choppy and you sure could feel it after the ferry passed.
Just a random airplane that flew overhead while we were on the boat.Here are two boats that were docked and being loaded at the shipping yard.Here is one of the coast guard boats.Random shipping yard picture.Thought this was interesting. When the tanker fuel ships go out to fuel up the big ships they put down a protective barrier (see the black and white rope). This barrier is to prevent the spread of an oil spill.Just some freight cars being moved on the ship.Here are the fire departments ships. Cool, huh?
After a busy and long day we went back to the room and the girls fake fell asleep in very awkward positions. :-)
The girls are finally out of the pool so we need to start thinking about getting ready for bed. Tomorrow is going to be another long day.