Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour

This famous ‘underground’ tour, which takes you through the tunnels and sidewalks hidden beneath the streets of Pioneer Square, might get a little corny at times, but it delivers the goods on historic Seattle as a rough and rowdy industrial town. The tour starts at Doc Maynard’s Public House, named after one of the city’s founding fathers and quite a character. An Ohio native, Maynard was divorced when he arrived in the city and was out for a good time; he was vivacious and generous and he liked his liquor. This combination led him to give away cash or land to almost anyone with a promising idea, and he died essentially landless and broke. (The rather revealing epitaph on his second wife, Catherine’s, tombstone reads, ‘She did what she could.’) The tour is massively popular, especially in prime tourist season. No reservations are accepted, so try to arrive half an hour early if you want to be sure you get in.