Past and present structures on Elliott Bay in Seattle, Washington, U.S. include:
Although the focus is on structures built over water, this list also includes some terminals etc. built on fill. Especially in the early years, it can be difficult to make a distinction between the two. "[O]ne of ... [the] basic practices," writes David B. Williams, "was to drive a double row of pilings out from the shoreline, lay timbers across the tops of the pilings to form piers and wharves, and build out atop the wood. They could then dump material under these structures, undertaking the land-making practice known as wharfing out."[1]
It is not possible for a list like this to be complete. In the late 1880s and 1890s, a lack of legal clarity about ownership of lands between the low- and high-tide lines resulted in a massive number of structures on the tideflats, mostly poorly built and short-lived.[2] "The craze for salt water," remarked Judge Thomas Burke, had "broken out again with greater violence than before ... [with] lunatics of high and low degree ... like so many cawing crows on the mudflats."[3] Even today, there are numerous small, anonymous piers and ruins of piers.
The geography of Elliott Bay has changed considerably in the period since people of European ancestry first settled in the Seattle area in the mid-19th century. In particular, virtually all of the Industrial District and Sodo, as well as all of Harbor Island are built on landfill; also, there have been a series of smaller adjustments to the terrain of the Downtown waterfront, including the construction of the Alaskan Way Seawall.
In general, when listing variants of names we have not listed minor variants such as "Yesler Wharf/Yesler's Wharf".