What Lies Beneath
Pentimenti of our Past
Several years ago, I thought I would write a book focusing on stories hidden under the surface of the city. I ended up going a different direction but had fun researching some of the many out-of-sight curiosities. Here are two lurking quietly at the bottom of Lake Washington and one excavated during the building of Light Rail.
1. Coal cars – It was a dark and stormy night (I kid you not) on January 12, 1875, when the tug boat Chehalis was towing a barge of wooden coal cars across Lake Washington. Mined near present day Newcastle (on the east side of the lake), the coal was being hopscotched across water and land, moving via barge, tram, barge, train (Seattle’s first), and tram again, to reach a shipping site on Elliot Bay.
Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate on that cliche January 12 and high winds forced the Chehalis captain to untether his load, which soon sank 200 feet to the bottom of the lake. In the 1990s divers found the cars, a bit south of the present day SR-520 bridge. Upright, broken, and some containing coal, the cars are about eight feet long and four feet high. (Despite what some say, there is no locomotive down there.) Because of the cold water, the cars are in surprisingly good shape. At present, the Newcastle Historical Society has hopes to bring one or more of the coal cars to the surface. By the way, there are at least 400 boats at the bottom of the lake, as well as quite a few planes.
2. Submerged Forests – It was yet another dark and stormy night (this is the PNW after all) about 1,100 years ago, when an earthquake estimated to be 7.5 magnitude caused three groves of trees to landslide into Lake Washington. These submerged forests consist of several hundred trees, all firmly anchored in soil and standing upright or tilted. When diver Leiter Hockett explored the trees off Holmes Point (near Kirkland) in 1958 he found himself “engulfed in a densely forested bottom.” He was able to bring one tree to the surface, where the wood “although waterlogged [was] as sound and fresh as timber felled on Washington slopes today.”
Mostly forgotten, the trees merited public attention in the 1990s. In 1994, John Tortorelli was caught salvaging wood from the submerged forests. Unfortunately for him the state Department of Natural Resources owns the trees, plus he damaged an underwater sewer line. Found guilty of three counts of theft and three of trafficking in stolen property, Tortorelli was sentenced to three and a half years in the pokey.
3. An Underground Dump – The travails of Bertha are the city’s most famous involving the many tunnels excavated for transportation purposes in Seattle. Far more interesting is what happened during the excavation of the light rail line near the Paramount Theater (Pine St And Terry Ave). Thirty to forty feet below the surface, archaeologists found sewer parts, food products, tree stumps, and household items. The latter included at least 40 leather shoes, wrapped or stuffed with Yiddish language newspapers; a Rainier beer bottle; a medicine bottle from a German manufacturer; Chinese porcelain; and a British cup. The remains suggest that a culturally diverse neighborhood of people lived in this area in the late nineteenth century; the accumulation could represent a dump. The items were so deep underground because the area was covered with Denny Regrade material in 1906 to create easier access between downtown and Capitol Hill. The artifacts are stored at the Burke Museum.
These hidden stories illustrate the many pentimenti that underlie the complex history of Seattle and its surroundings. To me, such stories are not only fun and interesting but also help me better understand the world I inhabit, as well as help me connect more strongly to my home landscape. I am not a Native nor someone born here; my hope is that in learning about the past I become what Robin Wall Kimmerer describes in Braiding Sweetgrass as “being naturalized to place:” To know the stories, to seek out the history, to care about the future, to live in a way that is respectful, sustaining, and responsible. These are my goals as a member of my community.
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Readers Respond: "Love the slug story. I remember putting a plate of beer in front of my tomato plants--supposed to keep the slugs away. It did not. A waste of good beer, although I probably used cheap beer. Maybe it would have worked if I used Black Butte Porter."
November 17 - Sno-Isle Library - 3pm - Virtual - I’ll be talking a bit about my beloved Puget Sound and Homewaters.
I love your perspective on "being naturalized" to this place. I am originally from far away (ok, Texas but seems far away) and the more I learn about this area, both the natural environment and human history, I feel more a part of where I live. Wonderful post, thanks!