Then, in 1889, a young carpenters apprentice let his unattended glue boil over onto some wood chips. The resultant fire consumed a good twenty-five blocks of the central business district. The settlers decided that if they were going to rebuild, they were going to build from brick and stone, and they would do it above the mud and muck. So, new streets were built on retaining walls at least eight feet high. New buildings, still at ground level, replaced the old; eventually, their ground floors became basements as new sidewalks bridged the gaps between the raised streets and the second stories of buildings. Over time, the neighborhood fell into disrepute, business and the city center moved elsewhere, and the old below-street buildings and sidewalks were forgotten.
Then, in 1954, a publicist named Bill Speidel became interested in restoring that neighborhood, Pioneer Square. Moved by rumors of a hidden underground city and the promptings of his wife, Speidel convinced his friends in the newspapers to support his cause. The newspapers called for Pioneer Square to be preserved and restored, and cited the rumors of the underground city as a way to spark public interest. So overwhelming was the response from the public that Speidel was encouraged to go search for the underground; to his surprise, he found that the rumors were true.
Speidel began running tours of the underground, and the City Council eventually adopted an ordinance naming Pioneer Square a protected Historic District. The underground was preserved, and today you can still go on Bill Speidels Underground Tour, an entertaining walk through the Seattle Underground filled with humorous stories of the areas past and Speidels well-known wit and charm. Pioneer Square is in the heart of Seattle, around forty minutes from Canyon Park apartments in Puyallup. It would be a shame to live so close and never see this fascinating and entertaining bit of history! Check out the tours website here.