Portland Underground

Buried under Old Chinatown Portland is a series of connecting passages known as the Shanghai Tunnels. Today, much of the tunnels have been filled and boarded up but in the 19th century, the tunnels connected the basements of many hotels and taverns to the waterfront of the Willamette River. The tunnels were originally built to move goods from the docked ships to the basement storage areas.

We took a step back in time with Portland Walking Tours for a two hour walk around Old Town Portland with a brief stint in the actual underground.

Portland Walking Tours office:

Our guide pointed out various historic buildings and their ties to the underground.

He also took a really blurry photo of us. 🙂

The Japanese American Historical Plaza in downtown, which was basically a place for “transients” (your politically correct term for hobos).

My photographs of Portland highlight the few clean areas of downtown. For such a “green and environmentally conscious” state, its largest city is unbelievably cluttered with trash. It is extremely disappointing.

The Portland Walking Tour goes right through the Dan and Louis Oyster Bar.

The famous Voodoo Doughnut, right next to a strip club. You can find out how to bypass this line in our post here.

Even on a a cold and rainy winter day, the line to Voodoo Doughtnut wrapped out of the store and around the corner.

Our tour ended in a small section of the underground, where we sat and listened to stories of questionable characters from Portland’s past.