PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles Underground has a new cedar sidewalk that harkens back to the old days.
Former Heritage Tours owner and director Don Perry and his friend Bill Huizinga, former Sequim City Council member, worked last week to install the sidewalk in the Underground from the stairwell on Laurel Street to the alley.
Sidewalks in 1914, when the Port Angeles Underground was created, were of cedar, Perry said.
“That’s how it was in the old days,” he said. “They used cedar for just about anything because it is so durable. Bugs don’t like cedar. It’s a very hardy wood. It lasts forever.”
The sidewalk is funded by Black Ball Ferry Line, which purchased Heritage Tours from Perry in April. Materials cost about $1,500, according to Perry and Bruce Erlwein, an independent contractor who operates the tours for Black Ball.
“I had this dream ever since I started doing the tours 17 years ago,” Perry said.
The work was part of his agreement with Black Ball, he said.
“I’m happy to do it,” Perry said. “I want to get this done.”
Today is the first day anyone can see the new sidewalk. Heritage Tours were on hold until today while the Underground is decorated for the Haunted Underground Special Edition Tour, Erlwein said.
The underground was created to solve a problem: Much of the downtown was on mud flats and businesses built on piers and docks had privies over Port Angeles Harbor. When the tide was out, all was well. When it came in, it was a mess.
In January 1914, the Port Angeles City Council — faced with raw sewage on the beaches and a downtown that flooded with every rainstorm and high tide — voted to raise the downtown street level by more than 10 feet to lift it above the tidal flats.
Within six months, the deed had been done, using soil from the Hogback — the name of the hill behind the Red Lion Hotel, east of Lincoln Street. High-pressure hoses washed the soil from the Hogback through pipes and down into cement retaining walls in the downtown streets.
It took six years for the mud to dry enough for it to be paved, which was done in 1920, according to Perry. In the meantime, city leaders created a plank road and sidewalks to cover the mud as it dried.
The process, which solved the sewage problem, left some buildings with a new front door one level above the old one and created the “underground,” a series of tunnels underneath the oldest part of downtown Port Angeles.
Now, Heritage Tours guides visitors through this early layer of civic history.
Erlwein says all the tours from today through Oct. 29 will be of a haunting nature, with Halloween decorations and ghostly tales told as visitors explore the dim labyrinth beneath the streets.
“It’s going to be a fun tour,” Erlwein said.
“We’ll tell ghost stories, lore picked up over time … It’s not historic or factual.”
Once it resumes Thursday, the tour will leave from the Port Angeles Visitor Center at 121 E. Railroad Ave. at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. every day but Sunday.
The fee is $15 for adults, $12 for seniors and students, and $8 for children ages 6 to 12.
For more information, see portangelesheritagetours.com.
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Executive Editor Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3530 or at lleach@peninsuladailynews.com.
