Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour, Seattle
Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour, Seattle
Without Bill Speidel’s effort, it is likely the popular Seattle Underground Tours would never have surfaced. Speidel spearheaded a campaign to rescue Pioneer Square after a fire wiped out the area in 1889. Rules were set, a new city would be built upon the old city. After brick buildings replaced destroyed wooden structures, shop owners were back in business one story higher. The original Pioneer Square was soon forgotten. In the 1960’s the area became the center of a controversy when engineers suggested filling the underground world with cement to make it sounder. Speidel stepped up to lead a campaign to instead convince the government to designate Pioneer Square and everything beneath it as a historic landmark. It is Seattle’s oldest neighborhood after all. Public interest peaked when Speidel started leading tours of The Underground. Beneath what are now art galleries, bookstores, cafes, and coffee shops lies a once bustling world now over a century old. Historic pictures, bar stools, mops and ladders are only the beginnings of what you will discover from a world that once thrived over 100 years ago.
