The original Downtown looked a lot different than it does today; wooden buildings, a saw mill, steeper hills.

Two major events changed it all: the Seattle fire of 1889, which burned most of Downtown to the ground, and the Denny Regrade, a thirty-year-long project that tamed the slopes of Denny Hill. Add in the major growth of skyscrapers, roadways such as I-5 and the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and the Seattle Center, and you’ve literally got a city that has rebuilt itself out of the ashes.