Pioneer Square-Skid Road District - Seattle, Washington         
Roughly bounded by Elliott Bay, King, 3rd Avenue, Columbia, and Cherry Streets. 
Listed in the National Register of Historic Places since
June 22, 1970

Pioneer Square's older buildings were badly shaken by a major earthquake in 1949, 
but man posed a greater threat than nature. By the early 1960s, Seattle's business 
establishment had targeted the area for "urban renewal" into a complex of parking 
garages to serve the downtown. The 1962 demolition of the venerable Hotel Seattle, 
which had occupied the salient formed by Yesler Way and James Street since the 
Great Fire, and its replacement with a hideous "sinking ship" garage rang alarm bells 
for the city's nascent historic preservation movement. Pioneer Square's architectural
 treasures were already being rediscovered largely through efforts of architect 
Ralph Anderson and art gallery owner Richard White. Journalist and historical author 
Bill Speidel attracted new publicity in 1964 when he began conducting the first 
"underground tours" of Pioneer Square's abandoned sidewalk areaways.
The election of a new generation of reform-minded city officials such as 
Mayor Wes Uhlman and Council members John Miller and Phyllis Lamphere 
gave preservationists new clout, 
which they applied to win approval of a 30-acre 
Pioneer Square Historic District in 1969.

Competition from the suburbs led downtown business interests 
to advocate “urban renewal” projects that would have flattened Pioneer Square 
and Pike Place Public Market to make room for parking garages and apartment towers. 
This sparked an energetic movement for historic preservation and both were saved 
along with hundreds of other landmarks.