PORT ANGELES — A section of the Port Angeles Underground has been remodeled and dedicated to a local man.
The Underground Heritage Tour hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday underneath Sound Bikes and Kayaks. During the event, they dedicated the section to Jackson Smart of Port Angeles.
“Jackson Smart discovered the underground and heard about the murals,” tour guide Steve Hargis said. “We recognized him for basically starting the whole thing.”
In 1989, Smart was working on his sign business in the Carriage House in downtown Port Angeles when someone told him there was a mural in one of the basements downtown, he said.
“I started looking around and got down into that basement and I thought, ‘This really needs to be saved,’” Smart said. “That was the first one, and everything started opening up after that.”
In the early 1900s, concerned about flooding, Port Angeles elevated the city’s downtown streets, creating a network of underground tunnels and storefronts, according to portangelesheritagetours.com.
“In this unbelievable feat of engineering, many older buildings were lost, but a select few remain,” the site states. “The stories they have to tell are captivating.”
Smart began trying to promote the underground murals and to gather support from city leadership at the time, he said.
“It was difficult at the time, but they finally came around,” Smart said.
In late 1999 or early 2000s, Don Perry got involved and created the heritage tour, Hargis said.
Since the tours began, Smart has been on the side, supporting the tours, doing what he could to help open the streets up and promote it, he said.
Smart called the dedication wonderful.
“It warmed my heart to be acknowledged for all the work for all those years and effort and money I put into it to have it up and running again,” he said. “It was just heartwarming.”
The dedication of the tour section surprised Smart.
“I just thought they were going to show me some stuff with the things they’d done and then it turned around and became this other stuff,” he said. “It was great.”
The tour section has been remodeled and garbage was cleaned up, Hargis said.
“I put a lot of classic photos of some different things that were going on specifically at the Angeles Hotel and the construction of the building that’s there now on top of the foundation of the Angeles Hotel,” Hargis said. “There are a lot of new displays in there. The photos are all lit with very nice lighting. It’s a very pleasant atmosphere down there now.”
The tour starts with an explanation of how the city raised the streets in 1914, according to the website.
“Next, take a short stroll through downtown Port Angeles to visit rediscovered basements and long-forgotten tunnels during the underground portion of the tour,” the site states. “Stop in at one of the city’s original movie theaters and venture into a hidden brothel above the unassuming family shoe store.”
The tour takes 2 1/2 hours, according to the site.
For more information, go to portangelesheritagetours.com.
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Reporter Emily Hanson can be reached by email at emily.hanson@peninsuladailynews.com.
