On October 28, 1915, arsonists set fire to a shipment of hemp fiber stored on the second floor of Pier 14 (later renamed Pier 70) on Seattle's waterfront, causing more than $1 million damage to the building and freight. It is the third attempt to destroy the pier in two days. Investigators determine the arson is the work of German saboteurs whose mission is to cause havoc in port cities on the West Coast and prevent shipments of munitions and war supplies from reaching Vladivostok, Russia, and the Allied Powers on the Eastern Front. Such aggressive acts of sabotage in American cities, together with conducting unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic Ocean, will eventually persuade the U.S. to enter World War I against the German Empire.
War Years
In October 1915, World War I (1914-1918) had been in progress for 15 months. The Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria) were intent on preventing war supplies from the United States, which declared itself a neutral country, from reaching Allied Powers (France, Great Britain, Russia, and Belgium) battling in Europe.
To this end, the German Empire engaged in unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic Ocean and dispatched scores of agents to Canadian and American cities to carry out campaigns of espionage and sabotage. Since all the munitions for Russia were shipped to Vladivostok from the Pacific Coast, seaports from British Columbia to California were prime targets. Already, millions of dollars worth of supplies had been shipped through Seattle, destined for the war on the Eastern Front.
Fire on the Waterfront
At 6:40 p.m. on Thursday, October 28, 1915, fire broke out on the second floor of Pier 14, known as the Ainsworth & Dunn Pier, on Railroad Avenue (later renamed Alaskan Way) at the foot of Broad Street. Sitting in the dock transit shed at the time was $4 million worth of freight from Asia, off loaded from the British freighter SS Ixion, owned by the Blue Funnel Line. Fortunately the Ixion had departed for Vancouver, British Columbia, and no other vessels were at Pier 14 discharging cargo.
Night watchman Joseph Hepp discovered the fire while making his rounds. As Hepp was returning to the dock office, he noticed light on the second floor. He asked night watchman Charles W. Wilson if he had left the upstairs lights on and Wilson said he hadn’t. Climbing the stairs, Hepp was met by smoke and flames and shouted out the alarm. Wilson ran to the nearest fire call box and turned in the alarm. Meanwhile, Hepp rushed to a fire-hose bay and with the assistance of timekeeper Anthony W. McCuaigh and warehouseman George Jones dragged the hose line onto the floor. The heat and smoke became so intense that they had to retreat before bringing the fire hose into play.
William H. Day, foreman of the Dodwell Dock & Warehouse Company operation on Pier 14, was walking up Broad Street when he saw flames erupt on the second floor and break through the roof. He hastened back to the pier and assisted in removing the records and furniture from the front office. Eight longshoremen, sorting cargo for transshipment inside the dock transit shed, managed to evacuate without being injured.
Firefighters Arrive
The Seattle Fire Department responded to the general alarm with dozens of apparatus. The fireboats Duwamish and Snoqualmie, moored at Fire Station No. 5 (Pier 53) on the central waterfront, immediately got underway and headed for the Ainsworth & Dunn Pier. Seattle Fire Chief Frank L Stetson (1855-1943) and Fire Marshal Harry W. Bringhurst (1861-1923) arrived at the scene with the first apparatus and took command of the operation. Firefighters laid 16 hose lines to the dock from hydrants along Railroad Avenue and began streaming water into the inferno.
Fanned by a stiff offshore wind, the fire spread rapidly, engulfing the entire upper floor of the structure. For a time, it seemed the entire pier was doomed, but firefighters succeeded in confining the blaze to the second story and roof of the transit shed. Fireboats Duwamish and Snoqualmie maneuvered near to the dock and prevented the fire from spreading into the decking and supporting substructure with streams from their powerful fire monitors. The blaze was under control within an hour, but numerous hot spots in bales of hemp and cotton required a detachment of firefighters to remain at the scene throughout the night to prevent it from rekindling.
Meanwhile, Seattle Police Chief Louis M. Lang (1865-1943), fearing the arson at Pier 14 was merely a diversion, dispatched a squad of police officers to guard the Arlington Dock, Pier 5 (later renamed Pier 56), owned by the Northern Pacific Railway. Pier 5 was known as the "war pier" because millions of dollars worth of munitions and war supplies were stored there, awaiting transport to Vladivastok, Russia.
Damage and Recovery
Destroyed on the second floor of the Pier 14 dock transit shed were 5,000 bales of hemp fiber, 17,675 chests of Japanese tea, 11,000 sacks of brewer’s rice, 4,000 cases of crude rubber, 750 tons of newsprint, 500 bales of cotton, 100 tons of arsenic in barrels, numerous bundles of rattan and bamboo, and pallets of miscellaneous commodities from China, Japan, and the Philippines. Ancil F. Haines, Dodwell Dock & Warehouse Company manager, placed the loss in freight destroyed or damaged by fire and water at over $1 million. Fortunately, an expedited shipment of silk, worth $2 million, had left the dock in railroad freight cars for the East Coast. Fire Marshal Bringhurst estimated the damage to the Ainsworth & Dunn Pier at $100,000. The entire second floor and roof of the transit shed had been destroyed and areas of the main floor scorched by fire. The pier’s heavy decking and substructure, however, escaped with minor damage.
On Friday, October 29, 1915, Dodwell & Company, shipping agents for the Blue Funnel Line, contracted with the Port of Seattle to utilize Pier 40 in Smith Cove until Pier 14 could be rebuilt. Ainsworth & Dunn, owners of the property, announced that dock reconstruction would begin in December and be completed by spring. They planned to extend the 547-foot structure by 40 feet, making it the longest pier on Seattle’s central waterfront.
Time Bombs, Explosions, Fire
The authorities were acutely aware that German spy rings were operating throughout the United States, determined to prevent war materials from reaching the Allied Powers in Europe and Russia. Fires and explosions of mysterious origin were routinely occurring at shipping facilities, rail yards, and factories. Attempts had been made in Tacoma to destroy cargo and to plant time bombs aboard vessels moored at the Northern Pacific Pier. Earlier in the year, on Sunday morning, May 30, 1915, a powder barge laden with 15 tons of gelatin dynamite, moored off Harbor Island in Elliott Bay, was destroyed by a time bomb. The perpetrator, a German saboteur named Emil Marksz, was run to ground by British intelligence agents. He committed suicide in a Seattle hotel room before he could be captured and interrogated.
The day after the fire at Pier 14, the front page of The Seattle Times announced that five German saboteurs had been captured in New Jersey in connection with a conspiracy to destroy munitions factories and steamships carrying war supplies to England and France. One of the conspirators, an explosives expert named Walter L. Scholz, was positively identified by undercover operatives in Seattle as the saboteur who had made the time bomb that destroyed the powder barge moored in Seattle.
In the professional opinion of Fire Marshal Bringhurst and others in the fire department, the blaze had been set by arsonists. It was the third attempt to destroy the Ainsworth & Dunn Pier in two days. The first fire, started in a shipment of rattan, occurred at 1:13 a.m. on October 26 and was extinguished by the night watchmen with an emergency fire hose. The second arson, also set in the rattan shipment, started approximately two hours later and was more menacing. It destroyed the rattan and damaged shipments of newsprint and tea before firefighters extinguished it. Evidence collected from the third fire revealed that a fire bomb had been planted among the numerous bales of hemp fiber stored on the second floor. In addition, witness reported hearing a muted explosion and seeing the upper floor of the dock transit shed suddenly burst into flame.
While reconstruction of Ainsworth & Dunn Pier was in progress, Dodwell & Company continued to handle Alaskan barge traffic at the portion of the dock left undamaged. Finally, on Tuesday, May 16, 1916, the Blue Funnel Line resumed operations at the repaired facility. During the seven months that Pier 14 was out of commission, Blue Funnel Line’s transpacific trade had grown so tremendously that the company determined that two terminals would be required to handle its vessel traffic Inbound cargo would be landed at Pier 14 and outbound cargo would be loaded aboard vessels at Pier 40 in Smith Cove.
Police made one arrest, a 37-year-old Norwegian dock worker, but no one was ever prosecuted for the arson at Pier 14. The destruction of the dynamite shipment in Elliott Bay, however, was used in 1916 to indict and convict six enemy agents, operating out of the German Consulate in San Francisco, of conspiring to interfere with the commerce of the United States and using the United States to incite arson and murder.
The Blue Funnel Line continued to utilize Pier 14 and Pier 40 until 1939 when its operations were moved to the Milwaukee Ocean Dock (now part of Terminal 30). During World War II (1941-1945) Ainsworth & Dunn leased the dock transit shed to the Washington State Liquor Control Board for liquor storage. In 1944, the facility was redesignated as Pier 70. Between 1946 and 1954, the pier was leased to the U. S. Coast Guard and thereafter used for public warehousing. In 1970, a major renovation project transformed the 70-year-old pier into a large tourist facility, housing a restaurant, boutiques and shops.
