Me And My Quirky Quarks.

I know that Seattle has that whole under ground city thing going on..

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That is what my friend is claiming as evidence it was once under sealevel and had to be filled in. But I can't find anything confirming his story.

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Do your homework! I know that where I'm from is under sea level haha.

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I know that my apartment is something like 78 feet above sea-level. And that even includes the 6 feet of building before my unit begins!

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I did the Seattle Underground Tour thing at some point last year. As I understand it, the city had continual problems with flooding, and many of the buildings were actually originally on stilts. After the legendary 1889 (?) fire that burnt nearly the whole city to the ground, they decided to fill it in to avoid the flooding this time around. It used to be that when the tide came in, all the toilets overflowed.

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Nifty! Old Seattle is Turd'O'Rific!!!

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about what I've heard, however the only parts of seattle that had the flood/tide problems where the lower parts (what is now Alaskan Way & the piers) a part of the city which actually didn't exist until after massive hoses were used to hose down the hills surrounding Elliott Bay (these hills are now downtown Seattle). The hoses blew tons of dirt and rock down into Elliott Bay, raising most of that land to sea level or just above it. (hence the flooding/tide problems) At lot of local sealife was killed in the process because of the a large amount of dirt in the water, mostly fish. This also made the hills around Elliott Bay less sheer and easier to build the city on (which would later be burned down). And yes, Adri is right on with the rebuilding, they built over the old city as well as did some more regrading of the hills (dumping more dirt down into the Alaskan Way area). I believe shortly after that they created Harbor Island too?

& the toilets used to overflow when the tide came in because the sewers went directly into Elliot Bay, so if you have a long pipe and you suddenly throw a few tons of water pressure at it, its going to shoot up the pipe like a rocket, turning nearly every toilet in the downtown area into man-made shit geysers.

I apologize for my complete lack of references on this, I googled my ass off for links but couldnt' find any, so I'm shooting off the hip from stuff learned in school many years ago.

Anyhow, to answer your question, yes, areas of downtown Seattle used to be under Elliott Bay, at least until they dumped a few million tons of Seneca Street into it.

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You are almost 100% correct! :P The only jinx is your information about the Denny Regrade Project.

The Denny Regrade Project was completed after the giant fire, in the early 1930's. It started in 1896, but took 30 years to complete. Alaskan Way and the Piers were not created by the DRP, they always existed, but there used to be a sheer drop off between 1st and 2nd, making the "West Edge" neighborhood (as it now wants to be referred to) less accessible from downtown. The extra dirt/soil/land matter that was washed off of Denny Hill was funnelled down into the Duwamish River head and forms what is now Harbor Island and also large parts of the SoDo industrial area.

http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=1123

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Ah! pwned through superior google skills

Thanks for the corrections L. I tried to do my best with vague memories from public education :P

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note: although according to both of these sites, the dirt from the Denny Regrade Project did not go into the construction of Harbor Island, only the dirt from the Jackson and Dearborn regrades went there.....still researching what they did with the earth from the DRP, the link you provided up there says "Having seen the power of hydraulic mining in California, he knew that the hill could easily be sluiced into the bay" but it doesn't say that it actually WAS dumped into Elliot Bay. I'll post more if I find more.

http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=3631

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbor_Island

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found it-

http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=708

1st phase: "Excess dirt was dumped into the tidelands of Elliott Bay near Railroad Avenue (later renamed Alaska Way) and Western Avenue."

http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=710

2nd phase: "It took eight years to sluice more than 5,000,000 cubic yards of dirt, mostly into Elliott Bay." (wow that's an assload of dirt!)

Here's a nice shot of what Railroad Ave/Alaska Way used to look like

http://www.historylink.org/db_images/king032.jpg


Meanwhile, here's a shot of the SoDo area & a flyer about the Jackson Regrade

http://www.historylink.org/db_images/ust003.jpg
http://www.historylink.org/db_images/cip14a.jpg


teamwork for teh win!

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I LOVE HISTORYLINK.ORG!!

My coworker and I are both subscribed to the History Link of the Day e-mails, which sends out like a nifty little tidbit daily, which we discuss in great detail in the office on our first 10 minute break! :P

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Actually, I found that link via Google to reference what I already had been taught in the "GEOLOGY OF SEATTLE: EARTHQUAKES AND FAULTLINES" seminar I took last quarter. :P My teacher Joe Hull was absolutely fucking fantastic. He says his favorite pass time is "finding special little connections between the geology and the history of my favorite city, Seattle."

The DRP was relevant because its the history behind why Harbor Island and SoDo are built on unstable landfill. If there is an earthquake on the Seattle fault plane (which runs down through the middle of Lake Sammammish, follows I-90 west, runs directly through SoDo between Qwest and Safeco, beneath Elliott Bay and under Alki Point), the areas created by the DRP are most likely going to sink back into the Duwamish flood plain. Kind creepy, because that's my house and my office!

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be alive in Seattle when Beacon Hill was a bluff with waterfront views?

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I need to get my ass back to the underground tour. I went there on a school field trip back in the day but I need to go there again because I'm sure I'd pay more attention this time :P

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