You know what? One of the coolest things about traveling is kind of stumbling onto a fascinating personal story of someone you never even knew existed, but who played a major role in their place and time.

I was in Seattle this past week, and I took a tour through the city's historic underground.

We saw the leftovers of the city after it had been destroyed by a massive fire and then

rebuilt 20 feet above the ruins. I'm Patty Steele. A madam who ran Seattle's fanciest and biggest

bordello was the city's financial savior. That's next on the backstory. This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

The backstory is back.

I love exploring the quirkier sides of history whenever I visit a new place.

So last week, I happened to be in Seattle, and I took one of their underground tours.

It tells the story of the

building of Seattle in the Pioneer District. All of the buildings there were made of wood,

since logging was the major industry in those days. As you can imagine, a lot of wooden buildings

crowded together in a somewhat industrial town can lead to disaster. The great fire of 1889 literally burned the

entire city of Seattle to the ground. When it came time to rebuild, nobody was interested in lending

the business owners any money, for fear they'd never be able to pay it back. Enter Lou Graham.

No, not the lead singer of the band Foreigner.

This Lou Graham had been born in Germany in 1857.

By the age of 16, she found herself in America, alone,

trying to make a living in a very dangerous place for a young girl, New York City. What she did there

is kind of lost to history, but by the time she was 27, she had arrived in Seattle. She wanted

to open a very classy, very safe bordello. She would hire beautiful, intelligent young women

to do the sex work and make sure they could engage their clients in scintillating conversation

...