Pioneer Square
Totem pole raised in a historic square, replacing an original stolen from a Tlingit village in eighteen ninety-nine.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the totem pole in Seattle's Pioneer Square opens in August 1899, when a group of Seattle businessmen on a goodwill cruise near Fort Tongass, Alaska stopped at a nearly empty Tlingit village and cut down its finest pole, carved around 1790 by the Raven Clan to honor a woman remembered as Chief-of-All-Women. It follows the unveiling that October, the fury of the pole's rightful owners, and a federal grand jury indictment that nobody ever served. You'll hear how the newspaper that sponsored the cruise quietly settled the matter instead, while the men who swung the axes walked away untouched. Stand at the base of the pole and picture three sailors chopping it down on a beach two thousand miles away.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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