File:Crowds awaiting arrival of steamships at the waterfront, vicinity of Spring St, ca 1897 (SEATTLE 587).jpg

Shows Pier 4 and the Alaska Commercial Co.

• Subjects (LCTGM): Piers & wharves--Washington (State)--Seattle; Crowds--Washington (State)--Seattle; Alaska Commercial Company--Facilities--Washington (State)--Seattle
• Subjects (LCSH): Steamboats--Washington (State)--Seattle; Waterfronts--Washington (State)--Seattle; Central business districts--Washington (State)--Seattle

(Joe Mabel is working with University of Washington visual material librarian Susan Fitch to get the metadata right for this.)

1. There is no way this is 1897. There was no pier anything like this in 1897. The first of the Northern Pacific piers on the Central Waterfront were in 1900. The original Northern Pacific Pier No. 4, the White Star Dock, was built in 1900 but collapsed on September 14, 1901 (see List of structures on Elliott_Bay), and it didn't look like this (see Category:White_Star_Dock); this is clearly the 1902 replacement, still there and now known as Pier 55. Note the prominent (partly obscured) "Arlington Dock Company" sign. So just by the pier this is 1902 or later.
2. But in fact (this is Susan's contribution, after Joe provided the first point): we know one of the ships is the Tampico, and we have two other photos clearly from the same day, File:Steamship TAMPICO docked at Seattle wharf, ca 1906 (TRANSPORT 798).jpg and File:Steamship TAMPICO, vicinity of Pier 4, foot of Spring St, Seattle, nd (TRANSPORT 797).jpg. The larger steamship is the Tampico, and it was chartered in 1907 by the Pacific Coast Steamship Co. for coast service, and sank at the Pacific Coast Coal Co. bunkers in Seattle at midnight, May 18, 1911. (pg. 66, pg. 138, pg. 197) Notes from Gordon Newell, ed., The H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest (Seattle: Superior Publishing Co, 1966)." So we can narrow the date even further.