We stayed four nights in the Olympia / Tumwater area and took a ferry from Bremerton to Seattle - very cloudy, windy and wet, but very beautiful!
After arriving, we headed to the Underground Tour of Seattle at Pioneer Square
Nicki had her eye on the red and black dress for her upcoming class reunion.
Next door was a kilt shop - yes, kilts!!! How about a kilt, Nicki???
Underground we go!!! Here's an OLD grate on the street where the glass has turned purple.
Here's from underground, complete with ferns.
Why there's a Seattle Underground...and yes, it's related to crafting - it involves GLUE!!!
On the afternoon of June 6, 1889, John E. Back , a worker in Victor Clairmont's cabinet-making shop near Front Street and Madison Avenue, was heating glue over a gasoline fire. Sometime around 2:30 pm, the glue boiled over and caught fire. The fire soon spread to the wood chips and turpentine covering the floor. Back attempted to douse the fire with water which only served to spread the fire further.
By the morning of June 7, the fire had burned the majority of 25 city blocks, including the entire business district, four of the city’s wharves and its railroad terminals. The fire would be called the most destructive fire in the history of Seattle.
Here's a beautiful metal structure in Pioneer Square - it was built at the time of the Yukon Gold Rush.
Wallpaper in an underground building.
Beautiful flowers and architecture - two of my favorite things!
Pike's Place Market - reminded me of London!
This is the famous fish throwing place - can you say 'slippery when wet?'
Nice way to display favors as a centerpiece - little boxes of chocolate where adorned with ribbon and placed on a cake plate.
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Following the fire, Seattle's civic leaders required that all buildings erected after the fire were to be built of only stone or brick. Prior to the fire, virtually all of the buildings were wooden, which of course fed the fire.
Then they made a most unusual decision, and that was to re-grade the area 1 to 2 feet higher than the original. Pioneer Square, which originally was built atop filled in tidelands, flooded easily. The new ground level would insure that the flushing of gravity aided toilets wouldn't cause a back up during high tide.
Ladders were constructed so that pedestrians could walk down to the original building entrances. Skylights were put in to light the underground sidewalks. Merchants knew that over time, the first floor of their reconstructed businesses would settle below ground level. As a result, those floors were sparsely decorated in anticipation of this inevitability. Some of these rooms and passageways are available for public viewing during guided tours.
That's why glue helped create the Seattle underground!
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