Underground

But first…

The 3 1/2 year old gets to start preschool today!

Do you think she looks like her mother?

Anyway, today we visited historic downtown Pendleton. Pendleton was established around 1851, and today boasts a population of about 17,000…

It is a nice, walkable downtown…

It even has a river!

We did notice these sidewalk skylights… These allow light go get into basement areas below. Which, by the way, is why we are here…

We joined the “Pendleton Underground” tour…

Like most 19th century towns, Pendleton buildings all had basements – some were built when the building was built, and others were dug out by hand after the building above was finished. These basements provided much needed storage and allowed utilitarian functions to take place out of sight. Also, in Pendleton, most basements were connected by a series of service tunnels, either under the sidewalk or under the street.

In addition to utilitarian functions, a few basements contained legal and illegal businesses as well… It was a rather rowdy town, at one time there were 32 bars and 18 brothels… There are still several bars. The brothels were shut down in 1953…

Our first visit to the underground was to a “Card Room”. It was, and is, a fully functional bar located in the basement. During the week tourists visit; on Saturday nights it still operates as a bar..

I know… Sometimes its hard to distinguish between the mannikins and members of our tour group…!

We moved to the next space. This was a Chinese laundry. The proprietor, Hop Sing, also lived here…

The next space is shown as an ice cream parlor. The actual ice cream parlor was upstairs, at street level. This basement functioned as storage, with a freezer, and this is where the ice cream was made…

This next space was the basement of a meat market. It also served as living quarters from time to time…

This pit in the floor was where the meat market proprietors made ice; they used the ice to store their meat, and they also sold it throughout the town…

And here you can see one of the sidewalk skylights. They really do let in a lot of light through prism glass… During WWII it served as a dance hall to entertain troops stationed nearby…

Another part of the basement area was a speakeasy during prohibition. It was complete with a hidden door so patrons could hide if the place was raided by the police…

This area was one of the service corridors that allowed access to the various basements…

We left the basements and went up to the street… We visited this building, labeled “Cozy Rooms”…

It was a brothel. One of the best brothels in town…

Note the large skylight above the central hallway at the top of the stairs… There are very few window, but all rooms have transom windows so that the light from the skylights reach all the rooms…