The Iron-Jawed Worm That Ate Seattle's Wharves

Owners of water front property who during the past decade have been compelled to construct and maintain wharves have year after year been wrestling with the question of how to get the better of the bothersome and iron-jawed teredo. The little creature has defied almost every effort to exclude them from the resinous pine trees which were driven through their timbers. Their attacks have been so insidious and the surface of the piles so smooth that the uninitiated could hardly conceive that in a short period of time these same seemingly stalwart columns on which rested life and property were honey-combed from circumference to circumference and could be crushed by slight contact.

Mr. J. M. Colman and his sons are the owners and managers of a vast amount of water front property, and after spending thousands of dollars replacing teredo-eaten piles they have founded the Colman Creosoting Company. The plant is at the foot of Harrison street, where now there are a large number of piles [treated] through the process. Dead oil of tar is the principal ingredient in the chemical compound which prolongs the usefulness of a pile from months to nine or ten years. The piles are put in steam tanks, then in a vacuum where the pitch and moisture are extracted. The pores are then filled with the creosote. The teredo objects to such a dose and hies him away to more palatable fields in which to ply his augur.

The company fills orders from points all up and down the Sound, as by its simple method thousands of dollars are saved to wharf owners every year, and what was once low is improved in better warehouses and buildings.