This Modernist building
is now part of Pier 36. It was built as the U. S. Army Terminal Warehouse
between 1940 and 1941 and now is part of the U. S. Coast Guard headquarters. By
the late 1970s, the building functioned as a laboratory and ground floor
openings had already been altered. Since that time, openings at other
levels have been filled in and/or altered. The building is mainly interesting
as a significant vestige of the U. S. Army’s presence at Pier 36, beginning in
1940 to the 1960s. Among other functions, the building now serves as a
repository for surplus government equipment and seized property. From 1975 to
1995, it housed of the U. S. Customs Patrol and Marine Unit. Also, during the
1980s, the southeast corner of the warehouse began to serve as the St Martin de
Porres shelter, run by Catholic Community Services.
The entire area of Pier
36, the former Seattle Port of Embarkation, was originally created on
tideflats, slightly more than one hundred years ago, from dirt obtained from a
variety of regrade projects, administered by City Engineer Reginald H. Thomson.
The Centennial Flour Mill and the Moran Brothers shipyard, followed by the
Skinner & Eddy Shipyard, and then the Pacific Coast Steamship Company (1924
to 1940), as well as Hooverville shacks during the Great Depression, occupied
what became Pier 36, before the tenure of the U. S. Army. The Port of Seattle
acquired Pier 36 during the 1960s and in 1973, leased it to the United States
Coast Guard. It is now officially known as the “U. S. Coast Guard Integrated
Support Command Seattle.”
Additional Sources
Paul Dorpat, “Pier 36 ---Seattle Waterfront,” HistoryLink.org
Essay 4149,
www.HistoryLink.Org,
accessed July 2010.
F. K. Lentz, “Pier 36, Alaskan Way South,” Seattle Inventory Field
Form, 1979, Washington State Deparment of Archeology and Historic Preservation
Website, <https:fortress.wa.gov/dahp/wisaard>
, accessed July 2010.
Mimi Sheridan, “1519 Alaskan Way South,” Survey Form,
(mainly photos), 2003, Washington State Deparment of Archeology and Historic
Preservation Website, <https:fortress.wa.gov/dahp/wisaard>, accessed July
2010
