This pioneer worked the Underground Railroad – and founded Seattle's Black Central District

In the early days, they called him Big Bill the Cook.

He was William Grose, a Seattle pioneer who rented a lunch counter at Reuben Lowe’s saloon in Pioneer Square.

He was a force the moment he stepped off the mail boat in 1859 or thereabouts. He stood 6 foot 4 and had lived many lives: cook boy in the Navy, gold miner in California, international negotiator for the Underground Railroad. He was said to be the second Black man to arrive in Seattle.

By all accounts, he was popular and deeply respected across color lines. In time, he’d become one of the wealthiest men in Seattle. He saved money to build a three-story hotel on Yesler Wharf, and bought 12 acres in the Madison Valley, establishing a foothold for the African-American community in part of what is now the Central Area.

But Grose, unlike his pioneer peers at the time — Denny, Greenwood, Phinney, Yesler, McGilvra — has been overlooked by Seattle history. The city honors its early settlers by naming streets, neighborhoods and schools after them; Grose has a pocket park. Even the main street that cuts through the area he launched into a vibrant cultural center, Madison, bears the name of a slave-owning president who died before Seattle was established as a city.