Just a week after local officials gathered near the Waco Suspension Bridge to promote local tourism, came an interesting story about tourism in The Wall Street Journal.

It seems that a popular European tourist destination, the Journal story said, is actually underground — where tourists get a peek at various city sewer networks.

Calling it sewer tourism, the article said this is no flush in the toilet.

In Paris alone, more than 100,000 tourists a year descend into the murky depths to see . . . sewer stuff. So many people are wanting entry to this tour that Paris officials are looking at a way to expand the underground system to accommodate the hordes of tourists.

One city in England a couple of years ago voted its sewer system the “Best Place to Visit,” said the Journal story, in part, because it gave visitors an appreciation for Victorian-era engineering and architecture.

And lest you think this is a passing European fad, the Journal reported that Parisian tourists have been attracted to that city’s sewer system since Victor Hugo made it famous in his classic “Les Miserables,” published in 1867.

I’m certainly not advocating that we open the manhole covers on Austin Avenue and start charging (although water treatment is pretty fascinating).

But there is something about tourism that can make almost anyplace a successful tourist destination — and Waco has no shortage of interesting locations with tourism possibilities.

As the local officials pointed out a couple of weeks ago near the Waco Suspension Bridge, tourism can have a huge impact on our city.

According to Trib reporter Mike Copeland, a recent state study examined tourism numbers from 2009. And in that year, the study showed that tourism pumped more than $406 million into the Waco-area economy and directly provided nearly 5,000 jobs.

Maybe I have a stilted view of things because my parents always denied my requests when driving cross-country to stop at the multitude of snake farms that seemed a staple of interstate travel when I was growing up.

But I think this area is rife with potential that would make any old European sewer system seem like nothing more than a trip into the gutter.

I raise one indelicate suggestion because I’m hearing the same idea more often lately from people with deeper Waco roots than I: Why not promote a trip to Mount Carmel, site of the Branch Davidian siege, as one tourist destination?

That was underscored recently when I was giving a group of students from Baylor University a tour of the Trib building and mentioned the siege. Most of the class had never heard of it before.

Then there’s the less controversial, though no less notorious venues in Waco that include that bad habit Wacoans of yesteryear had, it seems, of gunning down their local newspaper editors.

There’s at least two historic markers representing two dead editors. One of the markers even notes that the person who gunned down the editor was an elected official who promptly got re-elected after that evil deed.

Washington, D.C., long has had a series of popular tours that mark locations of great political scandals.

Why not Waco?

Where are the haunted houses in Waco? Where were the bawdy houses?

All have great potential for tourists.

In the end, it’s all about presentation and marketing.

Several years ago, I had the honor of driving around Waco in the company of Tom Charlton, the former director of Baylor’s Texas Collection. It seemed like he had a story, often dating back hundreds of years, about every corner of Waco and its development into the modern era.

That’s the allure of tourism: the realization that stories abound where ever people gather — or flush for that matter — and that everyone loves to hear a good story.

Carlos Sanchez is editor of the Tribune-Herald . Contact him at 757-5703 or csanchez@wacotrib.com.