1Seattle’s Historic ShorelineREMNANTS FROM THE PAST

Trace the original shoreline of downtown Seattle to see clues that reveal its modern form.

Like many cities built on the water, Seattle has drastically changed its historic footprint. In particular, some of the greatest alteration has occurred along Elliott Bay, where bluffs have been reduced, beaches eliminated, and shorelines pushed out into the water. The latter process is known as “making land,” when material is dumped into the water to raise the ground surface from below sea level to above.

Along the historic shoreline covered in this walk, railroads primarily drove the building of new land. The reason was simple: The railroads needed a way to access the downtown business district, and the best means was not over the hills that surround Elliott Bay but around their base. What started as a single wooden trestle carrying one train line over the shallow water along the shoreline grew into a system of interconnected trestles known as Railroad Avenue.

By 1905, nine sets of tracks wove across Railroad Avenue. It was a dangerous place; at least 10 people died in train accidents in one two-year period. Nor was it safe under the trestles, which became a dumping ground for garbage favored by rats, many of which carried fleas that harbored plague. In 1907, two people died from pneumonic plague and one from bubonic plague. A 1936 report concluded that improved sanitary conditions such as rebuilding the waterfront helped prevent the spread of plague.

Engineers eventually realized that they needed to fill in the area around the trestles to create a more stable surface for trains, as well as for automobiles and pedestrians. This led to two periods of construction of a seawall, during 1916 and from 1934 to 1936. When it was completed, the city changed the name Railroad Avenue to Alaskan Way.

Since the founding of Seattle in the early 1850s, approximately 2,800 acres of new land (about five times more land than Discovery Park) has been made. This includes Interbay, along the waterfront, and across the tideflats of the Duwamish River. Although the original historic shoreline has long been buried, many indicators remain that help reveal its former location.

In addition to tracing the historic shoreline of downtown Seattle, this walk includes stops at an unusual source of heat for downtown buildings, Seattle’s most infamous lost ship, and one of the city’s earliest houses of ill repute.

Start on the east side of Alaskan Way under the overpass at Bell Street, just north of the World Trade Center building (2200 Alaskan Way)

A narrow ravine once extended from the waterfront east to a seasonal village with two winter houses used by the Duwamish people near what is now the Seattle Center. They called the area babáqʷab, which means “prairie.” In order to keep the open habitat free of encroaching Douglas firs, Native people periodically burned it with low intensity fire, which also benefited valuable foods such as salal, camas, berries, and bracken fern, as well as deer.

By the late 1800s, the area between the ravine and the shoreline, more or less directly below where you stand, was dotted with cabins and shacks that housed resident and seasonal workers, many of whom were Indigenous people. They established this small community because of smallpox, land loss due to treaties, and changed economic priorities. Marginal locations such as this were often the only areas where marginalized people could live. For example, the Seattle Board of Trustees passed an ordinance banning Native people from living south of the Bell Street ravine and north of about Dearborn Street. The community remained at this location until 1905, when the Great Northern Railroad built a tunnel under Seattle, which exited several blocks south. By 1910, the ravine no longer existed.

Imagine yourself here in 1850, just before the first European settlers arrived. You would have been standing on the shoreline. A high bluff such as this one would have continued south, slowly losing elevation toward what is now Pioneer Square. At the base of the bluff would have been a narrow sand shelf, or ledge, covered in trees fallen from above and logs washed in by storms. The shelf dropped down to a beach of sand and rocks, which sloped gently out to the water. At high tide, waves would have pushed up to the base of the ledge, and at low tide, a sandy beach would have extended out into the water. The best nearby example of this is West Point at Discovery Park in the Magnolia neighborhood.

Another way to consider this landscape is to realize that most of the land west of the fence did not exist in 1850. It is all made land, created primarily by the building of Seattle’s original seawall and the filling in of the area behind it with sediment. But as we will see, early Seattleites also made new land by dumping what could best be described as garbage.

Return to Alaskan Way, cross the road to the waterfront (west side of road), turn left, and walk south to Pine Street and Pier 62. 

In 2012, workers across the street extracted a seven-inch-wide core of gray sediments that revealed the history of the site. If you had been here at low tide in 1850, you would be standing 20 feet lower on a beach of coarse sand, rounded pebbles, small cobbles, broken shells, and a smattering of woody debris.

The core was drilled as part of the archaeological studies for the replacement of the historic seawall. Cores were taken along the entire stretch of wall from S Washington Street in the south to Broad Street in the north. Because the sediments are soft, drillers used a roto-sonic drill, which not only spins but also vibrates 100 to 200 times a second. The oscillating drill parts cause the surrounding sediments to lose cohesion and liquefy, allowing for rapid penetration of the drill casing—a high-strength steel tube—into the ground. For the archaeological work, workers drilled out 7-inch-wide cores in 10-foot-long sections. The long core from this location contains about 20 feet of fill that was piled upon beach deposits. At the top are a couple of inches of concrete, followed by 6 inches of gravel, 11 feet of sand, 2 more feet of gravel, 4 feet of silt, and finally a foot of mostly sand with scattered bits of wood. Sand and gravel are misleading terms, because the content of those layers is not pure. Cores from this area generally contain garbage dumped by the city’s early inhabitants, including glass and brick fragments, sawdust, cinders, slag, charcoal, plaster, rubber, leather, bone, and concrete. This is typical of cores found all along the waterfront, at least closest to the original shoreline. Closer to the seawall is where most of the sediment was dumped.

Continue south along the waterfront to Union Street, turn left, or east, cross the street, and go up the steps or take the elevator. Walk to Western Avenue.

You are now back at the historic shoreline. The 400 feet of land between this point and the seawall to the west is all made land. Also note the elevation change between this point and 1st Avenue (at the top of the wall due east of you) and the additional drop to Alaskan Way, west of you. To reach sea level, you would have to drop another 10 to 20 feet. If you stood at this point in 1850, you would have been on a beach about 35 to 50 feet lower than you are now, with a 70- to 80-foot-high bluff rising above you. That is why no road unites downtown with the waterfront at Union Street.

Walk east on Union Street to where it dead-ends at Post Alley.

For the next few blocks, the historic shoreline runs south down Post Alley. The name came from a post office that opened in June 1880 at the corner of what was then Mill Street, now Yesler Way, and an alley that intersected the street. Originally a dirt road, Post was covered in wood planks in the late 1880s and, in 1910, with paving atop 8 to 14 feet of compacted sand, gravel, and cinders. By this time, although functioning as an alley, Post Alley had earned the name Post Street or Post Avenue.

The nearby industrial-looking buildings to the west with the chimneys and gray tower house the Enwave Seattle steam plant, formerly known as Seattle Steam.

Turn right and walk south down Post Alley to Seneca Street.

At Seneca, Post Alley changes its name to Post Avenue. This is the last point on the walk where a street trending east–west does not connect 1st Avenue to the waterfront. South of here, the bluffs, or sand banks, were no longer too high to block roads from being built down to the water.

Historically, there was a break in the bluff line at Seneca. According to J. Willis Sayre’s somewhat whimsical guide to early-day Seattle, This City of Ours, a bridge on what was Front Street and is now 1st Avenue once crossed Seneca at this spot. Below the bridge, a ravine provided access for traffic to go from the beach up to 2nd Avenue. South of the ravine to Madison, wrote Sayre, ran “high banks of dirt on the left-hand side and an abrupt drop-off to the beach on the right-hand side.”

Continue south on Post Avenue two blocks until it ends at Madison Street. You are now slightly west of the historic shoreline, which ran down what was known as Front Street (now 1st Avenue). Turn right, or west, walk to Western Avenue, and turn left, or south, and walk to Marion Street.

On December 30, 1875, the 161-foot-long, three-masted bark Windward was carrying a load of lumber to San Francisco when it ran aground in the fog in Whidbey Island’s Useless Bay. Because its owner owed wealthy Seattle entrepreneur James Colman $800, Colman acquired the ruined ship and had it towed to Seattle, where it was beached on the shorefront. By the late 1880s, the ship had become a husk, with all valuables stripped away and no masts. When a new railroad trestle was built along the waterfront, the builders simply plowed right through the Windward, driving piles as they went.

Unfortunately, we do not know the bark’s exact location. Speculation had long placed the Windward under a parking lot on Western between Marion and Columbia, but no evidence of the ship was found during excavation of the apartments on the southeast corner, which replaced the parking lot in 2012. Archaeologists who worked on that project suspect that the Windward lies due north–south in the middle of the block, with its northern end extending into Western Avenue and the rest buried under a building on the west side of Western.

Continue south on Western, past Columbia, until the road bends slightly, next to a large brick building.

The brick buildings next to you are the first ones built by the former Seattle Steam. Established the year after Seattle’s Great Fire of 1889 so that businesses could avoid housing coal-fired boilers, which increased the risk of fire, Seattle Steam burned coal to make steam that could be sent by pipes to heat nearby buildings. It also provided pressurized water to run hydraulic elevators, as well as electricity for downtown streetcars.

Over the years Seattle Steam expanded to four buildings. The two at this end of Western were built in 1890 and 1902 and had 11 coal-fired boilers. For decades a dominant sight along the waterfront was the company’s 70-foot-tall chimney spewing nasty black smoke. The third and fourth buildings, at Western and Union Streets, are now the company’s principal suppliers of steam, which is produced by natural gas and renewable biomass, or waste wood.

Enwave continues to send steam for heat to more than 200 buildings across downtown and up to First Hill. These include hotels, which use reclaimed water from its steam for laundry; hospitals, which sterilize medical instruments with steam; and businesses that require steam for their own sensitive products, such as beer and cheese.

To reach these buildings, the steam travels through more than 18 miles of pipes. It is not the ordinary steam that we see coming out of our teakettles. That “steam” is actually condensed droplets of water vapor. Enwave’s steam is a clear gas heated to 320 degrees and flowing at up to 250 pounds of pressure. If the steam traveled through a clear pipe, you would not be able to see it.

You have most likely seen a by-product of the steam pipes, however. Despite the high pressure and temperature, a small amount of water trickles within the pipes, which can lead to what is known as water hammer, or propagating pressure waves that can cause the pipes to explode. Plant operators combat water hammer by regularly draining the pipes, resulting in heated water that periodically vents as “steam” through hatch covers.

Continue south on Western until it intersects Yesler Way. (This was about the location of Seattle’s first large business, Henry Yesler’s sawmill.) Turn left, or east, and walk two blocks to 1st Avenue.

You have reached the geographic heart of early-day Seattle, the area where the first settlers decided to establish their town. It is also an area of great importance to the Duwamish people who lived and continue to live here. The Little Crossing-Over Place, or sdzídzəlʔalič in Whulshootseed, refers to a trail either to a nearby lagoon or over to Lake Washington. When the settlers arrived here in 1852, they found the ruins of three longhouses.

Historically, this area was known as the Neck (1st Avenue south from Yesler to just past S Washington Street), a reference to a sandbar that extended from the mainland to a peninsula that jutted south into Elliott Bay. The best place to see the Neck is on one of the most famous maps of Seattle. Drawn by Thomas Phelps, it depicts the young town in January 1856. Phelps was a lieutenant on the US sloop of war Decatur, which had arrived in Elliott Bay in October because of concerns about possible hostilities with Native inhabitants. His map is the first to clearly show the settler-built structures of Seattle and not just the landscape.

Atop the peninsula—known variously as the Point, Maynard’s Point, and Denny’s Island—were most of Seattle’s residential houses. Behind the peninsula, which rose about 20 to 30 feet above sea level, was a tidal marsh or lagoon. The Point was not always connected to the mainland. At very high tides, water could flow over the Neck and convert the peninsula to an island, which led to the first land-making in Seattle, when a man named Dutch Ned filled a wheelbarrow with sawdust from Henry Yesler’s mill and dumped it into the Neck. His goal was to raise the land high enough to prevent water from flowing over the Neck. The area around the mill eventually earned the name the Sawdust because of Dutch Ned’s efforts.

Walk south on 1st Avenue S to S Jackson Street.

For the past few blocks you have been traveling on what was Seattle’s main street in 1856, about half a block east of the historic shoreline, which ran down what is now the alley west of 1st Avenue. The shoreline is now buried under you, as is the entire peninsula. One of the advantages of Seattle’s Great Fire of 1889 and its destruction of the business district was that city planners could reengineer downtown streets, making them wider and more level. They accomplished this by adding fill to raise the streets up to their modern level.

Near this intersection is the site of one of the more infamous buildings in Seattle’s early history. Felker House, or Madam Damnable’s, as some called it, was a two-story hotel that stood at the western edge of Maynard’s Point overlooking Elliott Bay. Captain Leonard Felker had brought theprefabricated building to Seattle in the hold of his ship. The hotel’s manager was Mary Ann Conklin, who added to her income by running a brothel on the top floor. Also known as Madam Damnable, Conklin had arrived in Seattle in 1853 after her husband had abandoned her in Port Townsend, leaving her to survive by her own tenacity and determination. Her poetic name comes from her use of less than poetic language and, of course, her profession.

Walk south on 1st Ave S about three-fourths of the block to the arched entrance to the Hambach Building.

This is roughly the southern edge of the former peninsula and the southernmost point in early-day Seattle. Imagine standing here in 1850—you would have been on a 20-foot-high bluff. To the south were the tideflats of the Duwamish River, which extended for about two and a half miles to the mouth of the river (about a half mile south of the modern-day Spokane Street overpass). To the east, the tideflats extended to the base of Beacon Hill, and to the west was the open water of Elliott Bay.

If the tide were in, you would have been surrounded by water, with waves breaking against the bluff below. At low tide, the tideflats would have been a landscape of mud, incised by numerous rivulets of the Duwamish. Despite the lack of plant life, the abundance of birds, mammals, fish, and invertebrates made the tideflats an important food source for the Duwamish community. The tideflats would also have been rather aromatic, as buried anaerobic bacteria consumed dead organic material and expelled pungent gases.

Continue to the end of the block, and at S King Street, turn left, or east, and walk two blocks to 2nd Avenue S. Turn left, or north, and walk about one and a half blocks until you are almost at the driveway of the fire station.Please be aware that fire trucks may have to depart at any time.

You have now made it around to what would have been the protected, or east, side of the peninsula, directly opposite the sand spit shown on the Phelps map. The spit would have extended almost to the peninsula and might have persisted for decades, allowing a feature such as a tidal marsh to form in the protected area behind the barrier.

Continue north on 2nd to S Main Street, turn left, or west, and walk over to Occidental Avenue S. Occidental Park is across the street.

In 1856, this would have been the center of the tidal marsh, home to flounder, long caught by the Duwamish people. We do not know the exact boundaries of the marsh—plus, they weren’t fixed—but core samples taken in this area in 2007 provide some insight into where the marsh was and how early Seattleites eliminated it. Several cores contained layers of sawdust more than a foot deep, perhaps dumped by Dutch Ned. Others included layers of peat, which is what one would expect in a marsh, as well as brick, mortar, asphalt, cinders, concrete, lumber, and wood and charcoal debris.

As along the rest of the waterfront, Seattle’s early settlers regularly dumped their waste materials around the old peninsula to make new land. This historic waste-disposal practice has led to some undesirable features in the modern built environment. A walk around Pioneer Square yields tilted sidewalks, alleys with undulating asphalt, sagging exterior walls held up by support rods, and foundations sunk below grade. All are the product of a less than stable subsurface that resulted from Seattleites’ wholesale alteration of the landscape.

Despite these modern-day engineering challenges, the creation of usable land was critical to Seattle’s growth as a city. It facilitated the development of railroad yards, opened up space for industry and manufacturing, and provided room for the expansion of maritime trade though development also destroyed the fabric of life for the Duwamish community that had long relied on the tideflat and the surrounding land for food and as a place to live. Visitors and residents may not be able to see the historic shoreline of Seattle any longer, but they certainly still feel its effects—both culturally and physically—and will continue to do so well into the future.