The Pioneer Square Pergola features a delicate web of cast iron painted a deep forest green, topped by a glass roof that mimics the Victorian style of a London subway entrance. Completed in nineteen oh nine, it served as a comfortable…
Pioneer Square Historic Brick
This walk leads you through the red-brick Romanesque Revival buildings and cobblestone plazas of Seattle's oldest district. You will see how the city rose from the ashes of the 1889 Great Fire to become the main gateway to the Klondike Gold Rush.
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1. Pioneer Square Pergola
2. Expansive Pioneer Building
The Pioneer Building features a jagged roofline of gables and towers that rise above the red brick facade. Designed by architect Elmer Fisher after the Great Seattle Fire of eighteen eighty-nine, it replaced wooden structures that had…
3. Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour
The glass squares embedded in the sidewalks of Pioneer Square glow with a faint, greenish light from the street level. These are not decorative; they are skylights for the original storefronts of Seattle, buried when the city regraded its…
4. Merchant's Cafe and Saloon
The Merchant's Cafe and Saloon holds a deep, dark wood bar that arrived by sailing ship around Cape Horn in eighteen ninety. It operates as the oldest continuously running restaurant and saloon in Seattle. During the early days of the…
5. Central Saloon
The Central Saloon is distinguished by its narrow, three-story brick facade topped with a curved parapet, wedged tightly between its neighbors. Established in eighteen eighty-nine, it survived the Great Seattle Fire that leveled the rest…
6. Grand Central Building
The Grand Central Building is a massive brick structure defined by its rounded corner tower and deep, arched windows along First Avenue. Built in eighteen eighty-nine, it replaced the wood-frame hotels that burned down in the Great Seattle…
7. Occidental Square
The four iron pergolas in Occidental Square stand like skeletal cages over the brick-paved plaza. They were cast in nineteen oh nine to provide rain shelter for passengers waiting for the streetcar, back when this area served as the city's…
8. Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
The Cadillac Hotel in Pioneer Square holds the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park behind a heavy brick facade topped with a curved cornice. This building served as a gateway for thousands of stampeders rushing north to the Yukon…
9. Smith Tower
The Smith Tower wears a pointed white pyramid roof that stays visible across the entire Seattle skyline. Completed in nineteen fourteen, the tower served as the tallest building west of the Mississippi River for nearly fifty years. Lyman…