Teredo Worms Cut a Seattle Wharf Adrift
A shipworm-weakened pier at the foot of Dearborn Street collapsed into Elliott Bay, sending a warehouse down with a crash and leaving the wreckmaster to haul a floating dock back to shore.
Martin Baldwin, the wreckmaster, had his first job in the line of his office yesterday in securing one of the wharves of the Oregon Improvement Company at the foot of Dearborn Street from floating off to sea. The wharf toppled over in the water as the result of the teredo's attack on the supporting piles. The wharf was several hundred tons, and the large, old, unsightly warehouse at the shore adjoining the structure went down with a crash about 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon, demolishing the warehouse and leaving the wharf floating and ready to sail. Fortunately there was no one on the wharf at the time it fell, so that no accident was possible to life or limb. Wreckmaster Baldwin was near the scene of the wreck when it occurred, and securing the services of two men he anchored the floating structure, and will proceed to claim salvage from the Oregon Improvement Company. Baldwin estimates that the structure contains over 100,000 feet of lumber, half of which he will claim as salvage.
“The wharf toppled over in the water as the result of the teredo's attack on the supporting piles.”
Seattle's early waterfront was a timber shelf held up by untreated piles, easy prey for marine borers; the same forces still shape maintenance of today's seawall and piers. The 1895 collapse was a reminder that the city's ground is engineered and perishable, and that salvage could be a private business. The site near modern South Dearborn Street and Alaskan Way is now part of a rebuilt waterfront.
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