Clay Ballard often feels more like an improv comedian than a historian.

On a sunny Saturday in Pioneer Square, the tour guide led about 50 people through the musty tunnels of Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour, spinning stories about the horrors of 19th-century plumbing, rats and ghost sightings.

“I’m a little skeptical myself,” Ballard joked. “I haven’t seen a single ghost, and I’ve been here since 1893.”

He widened his eyes and pretended to fall back into the wall behind him.

“Wouldn’t that be great if my eyes glowed and sunk into the wall?” he asked.

Showmanship, Ballard said, has kept Speidel’s tour in business for 60 years.

“Think about how many times you’ve gone on a tour anywhere in the world and someone is just regurgitating facts to you, names and dates,” he said. It’s “so rare

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