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August 11, 2004
Riding Around America: Seattle History (or not)
Yesterday I went out in search of history. Seattle seems to lack a major history museum so I was forced to search for the history of the city in other areas. I had read about Bill Speidel's Underground Tour in my excellent guidebook and picked up a brochure at the hotel. Since I'm a sucker for anything that's abandoned or underground I decided to check it out.
The tour cost $10 and starts in a saloon called Doc Maynard's. The saloon was jam packed as the presenter began telling all 150 of us a bit about the history of Seattle. The initial presentation was about 20 minutes long and was perhaps the most abbreviated history of a major city that I have ever heard. Between the little bits of history there were a lot of jokes about different types of people, especially those who were from Tacoma. That's all well and good and I appreciate a good joke as much as the next guy so at this point I still had hope that the underground portion of the tour would be better. The large group was then split up into three groups of fifty and we were handed off to our guide, Gael, a funky woman with an annoying voice.
The first stop on our tour was out in the middle of Pioneer Square where Gael decided to start her stand-up routine. I say stand-up because this woman had no qualms about making a joke nearly every sentence. It was ridiculous. I hoped that maybe she was just warming up the crowd, and getting people excited about the tour so I was disappointed when the jokes continued, and even got worse, for the remaining 90 minutes of the tour. Maybe Gael was just trying to be entertaining but this was preposterous. Here's a breakdown of the tour:
- Jokes that had no relation to the history of Seattle 70%
- Jokes relevant to the history of the city 15%
- history of Seattle 10%
- silly audience participation that added nothing to the tour 5%
Yes, it really was that bad. I realize that the attraction is meant to be more entertaining than historical but what people that run places like this don't realize is that the history is entertaining. There are an infinite number of stories in history that don't need jokes to be entertaining and that stand up on their own as being interesting. Gael inserting a joke every 30 seconds was completely unnecessary and insulting to those on the tour like myself who thought they might get a nice, albeit brief, little history of the city.
To be fair, here's a summary of what I did learn:
- Seattle had lots of prostitutes back in the day
- Some parts of the city have underground passages due to the levelling of the ground after a big fire
- There is a tip jar near the exit
Yep, that's pretty much it. I will admit that the underground area was interesting, however, even though we only saw three blocks. After the big fire mentioned above, city planners decided to take the opportunity to level the city by destroying the cliffs surrounding the city, letting all the rock and dirt tumble down to the waterfront, and building everything on top of the rubble. Business owners were instructed to rebuild their structures with grand entrances on the second floor, which would eventually become the ground floor after the streets had been filled in. While the streets were being filled in, walls were built so that people could still walk on the sidewalks which were now below street level. Then brick vaults were built to cover the original sidewalks and new sidewalks were built on the new ground level, formerly the second story of the buildings. On the underground tour we walked along those original storefronts, just underneath the current sidewalk. Unforunately we only walked three blocks of what must be a much larger underground area and had to endure a disgusting amount jokes along the way.
Feeling depressed that I had wasted $10 to hear an underground stand-up routine, I immediately headed to nearby Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park to get the real story. The park is made up of several units (the main one is in Skagway, Alaska) which are located along the trail that prospectors used when they headed north to the Alaskan Gold Rush. The Seattle unit is just a small visitor center but in the small museum, in 15 minutes, I learned more about the history of Seattle than I did on the entire underground program.
I had my doubts about the accuracy of the underground tour so I struck up a conversation with the lone park ranger on duty. I mentioned that I worked for the NPS in previous summers and then pressed him about the underground tour. He lowered his voice a bit and confirmed my suspicions that some of the stories they tell "are just plain wrong". He then recommended a good book about Seattle ("Skid Road" by Murray Morgan) which gives a more accurate account of the city's history. So I'd like to thank the ranger on duty, who shall remain nameless due to incriminating comments about Bill Speidel's Underground Tour, for giving me hope that someone is telling the true story of Seattle.
Posted on August 11, 2004 at 1:29 PM
Comments
ouch - I was cringing as I read your account. When will people learn that history IS fun??? It doesn't need gimmicks or bells and whistles to dress it up. I appreciate a good pun as much as the next person (who can forget Admiral Graves and his 'grave' mistake) but it sounds like Gael and co. took it to the extreme.
Posted by: Preaching to the converted at August 11, 2004 2:57 PM
that sounds terrible. you should definitely let rough guide know your opinion of the tour -- maybe you can save others from the same horror.
ps. i don't think the typekey thing is working. did you paste your token into your config screen? did you put the path to your mt.cgi in your typekey profile?
Posted by: at August 11, 2004 3:33 PM
I had the token pasted in on the config screen but didn't have the path to the site pasted in the typekey profile. Thanks for pointing that out, whoever you are.
Posted by: manyhighways at August 11, 2004 4:13 PM
I too took the underground tour with Gael and had a blast! It was a great way to grab ones interest about history and not only entertain but educate. I learned about the greed of the founding fathers, how and why they decided to rebuild the city at two different levels simultaneously, how much money was made from legalizing prostition, how the Klondike gold rush impacted Seattle, and a peak into what life was like in a young, naieve logging town in the 1800's. I thought Gael was very deft at engaging all people in her group people were hugging her at the end of the tour! I wish all tour guides gave such an educational performance!
Posted by: terri at January 8, 2005 2:05 AM
Lighten up, sheesh I just had the tour with Gael yesterday. Maybe too many jokes, but at least they were funny. I suppose you folks prefer people as dry and boring as yourselves.
Posted by: Gael Lover at March 28, 2005 11:44 PM