Colman Dock, also called Pier 52, is the primary ferry terminal in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

, United States. The original pier is no longer in existence, but the terminal, now used by the Washington State Ferry system, is still called "Colman Dock".

Location

Originally Colman Dock was located at the foot of Columbia Street, and was immediately to the north of Pier 2. Before 1910, the wharf immediately to the north of Colman dock was used by the West Seattle ferry. In 1910 this wharf was replaced with the

Grand Trunk Pacific dock The Grand Trunk Pacific dock was a shipping pier in Seattle, Washington. The original pier was built in 1910 and was destroyed in a fire in 1914. The pier was then rebuilt and continued in existence until 1964, when it was dismantled. The area ...

. In 1964 the entire area was used for the much larger ferry terminal dock which exists today.

History

Pier 52 was historically known as Colman Wharf. The original Colman Dock was built by Scottish engineer James Colman in 1882 for the Oregon Improvement Company's coal bunkers. It burned with most of the rest of the city in the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, but was quickly rebuilt. In 1908, Colman extended the dock to a total length of . and added a domed waiting room and a clocktower. This expansion was designed by the Seattle architectural firm Beezer Brothers. Colman also set up a company, the Colman Dock Company, to conduct the dock's business affairs. Following the merger of the La Conner Transportation Company, headed by Joshua Green (1869–1975), with the Puget Sound Navigation Company (PSN), headed by Charles E. Peabody (1857–1926) the Colman Dock Company, and the Colman Dock itself, came under PSN control. In 1910, PSN was approaching monopoly control over the inland steamship routes of western Washington, with the company's most serious challenger being the Kitsap County Transportation Company (KCTC), headed by Kitsap County businessman Warren L. Gazzam (1864–1961). The rivalry between the two companies became almost a personal matter between Green and Gazzam. In 1910, Green, having obtained control of Colman Dock, and engaged in a rate war with KCTC, ordered KCTC not to land its boats at Colman Dock. KCTC then moved several piers north, to the Galbraith, Bacon dock. Colman Dock, Seattle WA, circa 1912

Colman Dock was seriously damaged when, on the night of April 25, 1912, the steel-hulled ship ''Alameda'' accidentally set its engines "full speed ahead" instead of reversing, and slammed into the dock. The dock tower fell into the bay and the sternwheeler ''Telegraph'' was sunk. The clock was salvaged, as was the ''Telegraph'', and the dock was reconstructed with a new tower. No one died in the ''Alameda'' accident, but a less dramatic accident the following month proved fatal. On May 19, 1912, a gangplank collapsed as passengers were boarding the Black Ball steamer ''Flyer''. At least 60 people fell into the water. One woman and one child died. In 1917, Colman Dock was owned and operated by Colman Dock Company, with B. P. Morgan as manager. Colman Dock was the terminal of the Puget Sound Navigation Company, the Merchants Transportation Company, and several Puget Sound shipping lines. Colman Dock measured , with of berthing space. In 1917 an overhead walk (still in existence in 1983) led from the Seattle business district to the waiting room, from which most of the Puget Sound steamship passenger traffic originated. There were also adjustable passenger gangplanks and adjustable freight slips. In 1917 Colman Dock was equipped with a Barlow marine elevator. Colman Dock could accommodate 14 Puget Sound steamboats at one time. There were offices on the north side of the overhead walk. In the mid-1930s Puget Sound Navigation Company modernized Colman Dock, using an

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

style that matched their streamlined signature ferry . In 1935, Colman Dock became the Seattle terminal for what had been the

Alki–Manchester ferry The Alki–Manchester ferry was a ferry route in Washington State that from 1925 to 1936 ran between Alki Point and Manchester, Washington, across Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean ...

when the dock at

Alki Point Alki Point is a point jutting into Puget Sound, the westernmost landform in the West Seattle district of Seattle, Washington. Alki is the peninsular neighborhood on Alki Point. Alki was the original settlement in what was to become the city of S ...

washed out. In 1951, Washington State bought out PSNC and took over the ferry system. The state paid $500,000 for the ferry terminal at Colman Dock. Work on the present terminal began a decade later; there have been several reconfigurations and modernizations since. The very month that the state ferry terminal opened, it was the subject of another accident. The ''Kalakala'', which had recently been voted Seattle's second biggest attraction after the then-new

Space Needle The Space Needle is an observation tower in Seattle, Washington, United States. Considered to be an icon of the city, it has been designated a Seattle landmark. Located in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood, it was built in the Seattle Cente ...

, rammed the terminal February 21, 1966. Though dramatic, the damage proved not to be severe. The ferry needed only minor repairs and was back in service the next day. Repairs to the slip cost $80,000 and took two months to complete. The clock from the old Colman Dock tower, dunked into the bay in the 1912 ''Alameda'' accident and removed in the 1936 renovation, was rediscovered (lying in pieces) in 1976, purchased by the Port of Seattle in 1985, restored, given as a gift to the

Washington State Department of Transportation The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT or WashDOT, both ) is a governmental agency that constructs, maintains, and regulates the use of transportation infrastructure in the U.S. state of Washington. Established in 1905, it is ...

, and reinstalled on the present Colman Dock on May 18, 1985.

Current status

Two ferry routes currently depart from Colman Dock: the

Seattle–Bainbridge ferry The Seattle–Bainbridge ferry is a ferry route across Puget Sound between Seattle and Bainbridge Island, Washington. The route was called the Seattle–Winslow ferry before the city of Winslow annexed the rest of the island and changed its nam ...

and the Seattle–Bremerton ferry. Two passenger-only ferry systems, the King County Water Taxi and Kitsap Fast Ferries, operate out of a separate facility at Pier 50 on the south side of Colman Dock. The water taxi serves

West Seattle West Seattle is a conglomeration of neighborhoods in Seattle, Washington, United States. It comprises two of the thirteen districts, Delridge and Southwest, and encompasses all of Seattle west of the Duwamish River. It was incorporated as an i ...

, Vashon Island, while the Fast Ferries serve Bremerton and Kingston. From 2017 to 2019, passenger ferries used a temporary passenger-only dock at the north side of Pier 52. The new Pier 50 facility opened on August 12, 2019, with a covered waiting area that can hold 500 people. A pedestrian overpass will connect it to the Washington State Ferries facility when it opens in 2020.

Redevelopment

The first phase of the new terminal building opened on September 15, 2019. The remainder of the main building was opened in November 2022 and can hold up to 1,900 passengers in the waiting area, which has 362 seats and twelve turnstiles. Construction of an entry building with retail and connections to a rebuilt pedestrian overpass is expected to last until 2023.

Notes

References