Northwest wheat has a boat to catch!

Seattle’s Elliott Bay has plenty of cargo ship terminals, but only one of them loads wheat and other grains. Boringly named “Pier 86 Grain Terminal,” it literally straddles Seattle’s Centennial Park, which stretches over a mile and a half along the Elliott Bay shoreline. A stream of walkers, bikers, joggers, and other denizens can be seen at all hours traversing the paved trails underneath the conveyor assembly that carries wheat from the landside silos to the holds of cargo ships docked at the pier. The grain terminal exports about five million metric tons of grain each year, frequently requiring waiting freighters to anchor in the bay while a docked freighter loads at the Pier.