Seattle: 1900-1920 -From Boomtown, Through Urban Turbulence ...

Part OneWhen Railway and Marine Newsbegan publishing in 1904, its editorsnoted that most of the improvements onthe waterfront had been made since 1900and that the Northern Pacific and thePacific Coast Company alone had builteighteen new piers and warehouses in thenew century. “In general terms it may bestated that the wharfs and warehouses ofSeattle are owned and controlled by thethree great transportation companies: theGreat Northern Railway Company, theNorthern Pacific Railway Company andthe Pacific Coast Company.” The last, thesuccessor to the Oregon ImprovementCompany, operated exclusively in thecoastal trade, using the ships of itsaffiliate, the Pacific Coast SteamshipCompany.In 1903 one of the mainstays of Seattle’s pioneer economy,the coal wharf and bunkers at King Street, was razed andreplaced three blocks south at Dearborn Street with thetwin towers of the Pacific Coast Company—successorsto the pioneer Oregon Improvement Company. In the1960s the landmark towers were razed like much elsesouth of King Street for construction of the sprawlingPier 46 container yard.The NP soon dropped out of the marine business. Independent wharfs, where theMosquito Fleet operated, catered to the trade in Alaska and Puget Sound. These wharfs,Railroad Avenue reached its full width in the first years of the twentieth century. It held nine parallel tracksplus a planked extension on the bay side for wagons to reach the new railroad finger piers. This view of itlooks north from Yesler Way. The sprawling Columbia Street Depot is on the right. Built after the 1889 fire itwas at various times home to the Seattle Lake Shore and Eastern Railroad, the Northern Pacific, and the GreatNorthern. After the new King Street Union Depot opened in 1905 this clapboard terminus was kept for oddassignments until it was razed in 1910.