Pioneer Square

Pioneer Square traces its start to the mid-19th-century logging days of early Seattle. It’s a small area of only a few blocks, including the original “Skid Road” (Yesler Way), later popularly known as “Skid Row,” where logs were literally slid downhill to the local sawmill for cutting and shipping. Pioneer Place (1st Avenue and Yesler Way) is best known for its Seattle landmarks: a Tlingit totem pole reproduction, a wrought-iron pergola constructed in 1909 to shelter passengers waiting for streetcars, and the Pioneer Building, a six-story Romanesque Revival structure constructed in 1892. For a fascinating and unusual introduction to the salty history of young Seattle in this area, take Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour. It’s an adventurous, 90-minute walking tour beneath today’s street level, for that’s where the original downtown Seattle was located before the Great Fire of 1889. Learn all about it as you marvel at the building fronts of hundred-year-old brothels, shops, dance halls, and emporiums. It’s fun, but not for the claustrophobic. (608 First Avenue between Yesler & Cherry; hours vary monthly; 206-682-4646; www.undergroundtour.com.)