Seattle Washed Away Its Own Hills. Then Buried Its Downtown.

A hundred years ago, a 240-foot hill stood where downtown Seattle's towers are today. The city blasted it into Elliott Bay with high-pressure hoses, raised its burned-out downtown a full story after the Great Fire of 1889, built what was then the world's largest artificial island, and lowered Lake Washington by nearly nine feet. 🔔 A new city, seen from above, every day →    / @overheadatlas   This is how Seattle became the opposite of every U.S. city: it didn't find room to grow, it manufactured it. From the Seattle Underground and its purple glass skylights to Bertha, the $80 million tunnel machine that got stuck for two years, to this fall's news that Seattle has lost 18,605 jobs while Bellevue across the lake keeps growing. Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:23 A city built in a pit 1:26 The fire that buried downtown 2:52 Washing away the hills 3:57 The 'spite mounds' and the last of the hill 5:01 Building land out of thin air 5:55 Draining a lake by nine feet 6:32 Digging under downtown, again 7:26 Why now: the jobs are crossing the lake 8:10 Outro Sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regradi... https://www.earthmagazine.org/article... https://historylink.org/File/21204 https://historylink.org/File/23118 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_S... https://historylink.org/File/21099 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle... https://99percentinvisible.org/episod... Credits Seattle - Second & Pine during Denny Regrade, 1905, featuring Washington Hotel.jpg — Seattle Municipal Archives; probably Otto T. Frasch, compare File:Changes due to regrading at vicinity of 1st and Pine St, 1906-1908 (SEATTLE 2608).jpg — CC BY 2.0 — Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...] Seattle Kerry Park Skyline.jpg — CommunistSquared — CC0 — Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...] Seattle Underground 03079.jpg — Ronincmc — CC BY-SA 4.0 — Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...] Hancock View 78 (3540296222).jpg — Jaysin Trevino from Evanston, IL, US — CC BY 2.0 — Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...] Overhead wire in Queen Anne.jpg — Matthew Rutledge — CC BY 2.0 — Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...] Looking up the counterbalance, Queen Anne Avenue, ca 1900 (MOHAI 7101).jpg — Webster & Stevens — Public domain — Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...] City Engineer RH Thomson and sign for new dam, ca 1912 (MOHAI 6145).jpg — Webster & Stevens — Public domain — Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...] Seattle waterfront at Columbia and Madison, circa 1885 (MOHAI 9022).jpg — Unknown authorUnknown author — Public domain — Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...] Seattle - Pioneer Building 08.jpg — Joe Mabel — CC BY-SA 3.0 — Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...] Great Seattle Fire at 1st and Union, June 6, 1889 (MOHAI 9284).jpg — Unknown authorUnknown author — Public domain — Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...] Aftermath of the Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889 showing group of men examining the ruins (SEATTLE 2549).jpg — Unknown authorUnknown author — Public domain — Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...] Aftermath of the Seattle fire of June 6, 1889, showing the ruins of buildings (SEATTLE 1307).jpg — Unknown authorUnknown author — Public domain — Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...] Seattle - Pioneer Building 06.jpg — Joe Mabel — CC BY-SA 3.0 — Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...] #maps #geography #seattle Satellite imagery contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data; map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Narration is AI-generated (Azure Neural TTS); maps and edits are original.