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Old newspapers, pinned to the places they wrote about — the streets you can still walk today.
In February 1886, a citizen-led campaign of forced expulsion against Seattle’s Chinese residents spiraled into a violent confrontation, triggering a week of martial law and armed conflict in the streets.
“The mob, who imagined they were engaged in removing the Chinese by force, were in control of the streets.”
An armed confrontation between I.W.W. protesters and a citizens' posse leaves six dead and scores wounded after a failed landing in Everett.
“The fight must be won.”
The entire business district of Seattle was reduced to ashes in a massive conflagration, leaving the city without a single standing business house.
“Not a business house left in the city.”
In November 1916, a boatload of union men arrived at the city dock and were met by two hundred armed deputies. Everett has never fully agreed on what happened next.
“We are all leaders.”
A fiery defense of the 1886 imposition of martial law during the anti-Chinese riots, arguing that civil authority had collapsed under the pressure of the mob.
“There was no subversion of the civil authorities by Governor Squire, because the civil authorities had already been subverted by the mob.”
In 1885, Seattle laborers and anti-Chinese activists gathered for a massive, torch-lit demonstration to demand the removal of the city's Chinese population, marking a dark chapter of exclusionary labor violence in the Pacific Northwest.
“I am here to lift my voice for white men, white labor and a white country, now and forever.”
A devastating structural collapse and fire at a downtown factory leaves dozens of workers dead or critically injured in a haunting industrial disaster.
“The scene was one of utter chaos; onlookers and police rushed to the site to find workers attempting to pull their colleagues from the ruins.”
As anti-Chinese sentiment boiled over in Seattle, local laborers and activists held a packed rally to formalize plans for the forced expulsion of the city's Chinese population.
“There is an irresistible, irrepressible conflict here, the result of which will be that the Chinese must leave this country, and before very long.”
A presidential proclamation from Grover Cleveland arrived in Seattle, authorizing the use of federal troops to suppress 'domestic violence' and restore order after anti-Chinese mobs took to the streets.
“Whereas, it is represented to me by the Governor of the Territory of Washington that domestic violence exists within the said Territory... whereby life and property are threatened and endangered.”
A report on the growing anti-Chinese labor movement across the Pacific Slope and the violent expulsion of workers from Seattle and Tacoma.
“It was decided that riot must be the inevitable result if the Chinese were not by peaceable means expelled.”
A century ago, boosters dreamed of a massive industrial city on the Columbia, promised by the General Electric Company as a 'second Niagara Falls.'
“All things come to those who wait, and while some of us have sprouted gray whiskers in the interim, that Priest Rapids dam today looks more like reality to the old timers than it ever has before.”
Following a series of attacks, the Mayor seeks to organize property owners against vigilante methods.
“There are very few persons in this community who believe that mob rule is the best means of ridding the country of Chinese.”
When federal troops were deployed to suppress anti-Chinese violence in 1885, they found themselves quartered in a local opera house, leading to a strange and rowdy few days in the city.
“In nine cases out of ten, when you find an American boy enlisting in time of peace, you can put it down that he has been in some trouble or disgraced himself.”
Tensions boil over between labor organizers and the property-owning elite over the presence of Chinese workers, as the city teeters on the edge of mob rule.
“The hands cannot say to the feet, because they tread in the dust, I am more honorable than you.”
A massive wildfire has destroyed timber, bridges, and the entire settlement of Wellington, forcing settlers to flee for their lives.
“Rush Cameron, a rancher ten miles north, only escaped by digging a hole in the ground and crawling into it.”
Delegates from across the Puget Sound gather in Seattle to organize for the mass expulsion of Chinese laborers.
“I won't go in for shooting Chinamen or burning their property, but should any peaceable means be devised I'll put my shoulder to the wheel.”
Court testimonies from the 1886 anti-Chinese riots reveal a city in the grip of a violent, organized crusade to forcibly expel its Chinese residents.
Facing mounting pressure and threats of violence, the Mayor of Seattle summons citizens to address the growing anti-Chinese agitation.
“I have conceived it prudent to call a meeting... for the purpose of taking counsel and devising ways and means to prevent further bloodshed.”
Striking workers and the unemployed navigate a treacherous path from Seattle and Tacoma toward Washington D.C., clashing with deputy marshals and local authorities along the Northern Pacific tracks.
“I know every one, and they're all right. We don't steal the cars, the company says so long as we make no trouble and keep out of sight in the cars we can ride.”
Workers across the line walk off the job to protest wage cuts and the threat of strikebreakers.
“All Great Northern employees have gone out, and will not return to work until all wages and schedules of all classes of employees in effect prior to first cuts made last August are restored.”
A correspondent defends the Seattle police for their inaction while deputy marshals were hunted through the downtown district by angry crowds.
“They allowed a citizen to be emailed and driven from street to street, and did not lift a finger in his defence.”
A coroner's jury found that someone deliberately set the fire that suffocated 37 workers in the Franklin mine. The only survivor described how one opened door and one stopped fan turned the gangway into a death trap.
“I have an idea who set the breast on fire, but I won't say. ... 'Cause the man I suspect is dead. He was smothered in the level.”
While Yakima celebrated the Fourth of July, a neighbor city fell to a devastating, likely incendiary blaze.
“The water supply was totally inadequate and so great was the heat that the little water that was to be had scarcely neared the flames before it went up in steam.”
Forty-one members of the Industrial Workers of the World were transported under heavy guard to the Snohomish County jail following the bloody confrontation on the waterfront.
“Forty-one members of the Industrial Workers of the World, charged with murder in connection with the fight here.”
How a corrupt water monopoly swindled the city out of nearly $1.5 million for a tainted water supply, leaving residents with a decade of filth.
“The story of this purchase is the one great scar upon the fair name of the city.”
A massive fire destroys the heart of Spokane, leveling banks and landmarks while the city's future hangs in the balance.
“The fire originated at 6 p.m. in a block of frame buildings, which burned like tinder, and four hours later the fiery demon had done its work.”
A report from the Seattle 'Committee of Fifteen' details their campaign to coerce the Chinese population to leave, as local business leaders and the 'Knights of Labor' consolidate power.
“The committee went to each of the Chinese houses in town, took a census of their grade, and gave them to understand that we, as citizens, could and would dispense with them.”
Forest fires from the British border to the Olympic Mountains sent a pall over Seattle, slowed steamers and trains, and destroyed homes, a bridge and a thirty-room mansion near Whatcom.
“The wail which went up from the half-suffocated pedestrians yesterday was pitiful to hear and the universal cry seemed to be: 'When will it rain?'”
An archival look at the exclusionary 1886 resolution that fueled the violent campaign to purge Chinese residents from Tacoma.
“Tacoma's soil is too sacred to be ever trodden by the slave-ridden.”
A bitter dispute over a 'breast' of coal at the Newcastle mines escalated into a violent confrontation between the Miners’ Union and the Knights of Labor, leaving one man dead and many injured.
“No more work in Newcastle mine until this trouble is settled.”
Governor Watson C. Squire revokes martial law in Seattle following the forced expulsion of Chinese laborers, signaling a return to civil governance.
“That volley that startled the streets of Seattle meant all this, and it was heard in the streets of every city on this coast.”
In February 1886, local vigilante committees pressured Seattle’s Chinese residents to abandon their homes and businesses under threat of violence, forcing a mass departure from the city.
“Those of the laboring class were given one hour in which to leave, and the merchants were allowed three days' time to settle up their business and get out of town.”
As anti-Chinese sentiment reaches a fever pitch in Seattle, the local press advocates for a 'peaceful' campaign of economic exclusion to force the Chinese community out of the city.
“The process has been principally one of freezing out. Arguments have been presented to employers of labor which induced them to dispense with the help of Chinamen, and unable to find work, the next thing for the foreigners to do was to leave.”
A look inside the 1886 trial records as civic leaders and residents testified about the forced expulsion of Seattle's Chinese community.
“The Chinamen were scared, having been headed off by the mob. I saw McMillan and Keane there. Heard Keane speak.”
Tacoma’s Commercial Club maneuvers to open reservation lands to development, sparking local controversy.
“Frank C. Ross... stated recently that trouble would result if congress did not give the three or four roads now desiring a right-of-way the privileges they desire.”
When the Northern Pacific Railroad bypassed established Yakima City in favor of its own private land, it didn't just build a station—it forced an entire town to pack up and move.
“Any one who knows the process of railway building knows that it is a common thing to build up a town and pull down another in this manner, if the established town offers an insufficient bonus for a station.”
Seattle City Treasurer Adolph Krug flees to British Columbia amid reports of a massive $30,000 deficit in the municipal treasury.
“I believe Mr. Krug is honest and will return and I do not believe you have any right to suspend him.”
In a bombshell ruling that blindsided the territory, the Supreme Court struck down the 1883 law that first granted Washington women the right to cast a ballot.
“The act conferring the ballot upon women null and void.”
In a pre-planned act of collective expulsion, hundreds of residents marched through the rain to force the city's Chinese population to flee to Lakeview, marking a dark chapter in Pacific Northwest history.
“Everything was orderly, no violence occurring. At 4:30 p.m., a long string of Chinese commenced to move, drays carrying their luggage.”
An Indian widow and her children reclaim their land after being defrauded by a prominent guardian.
“It was some time before the eyes of the unfortunate Indian woman were opened to the deceit and trickery which had been practiced on her.”
A brutal night of terror in the hop fields as an armed mob targets immigrant laborers.
“I heard Ferry Bayne say: Hold up the tent, and all shoot when we get ready.”
A man who set a loaded trap for intruders in his cabin faces a murder conviction, setting a major legal precedent for property defense.
“A man has no more right to set a gun during his absence than he would have if at home.”
Following the devastating fire of 1889, Seattle's business leaders, bankers, and citizens mobilize to enforce strict brick-and-stone building codes while navigating the logistics of temporary survival.
“We will have brick buildings within the fire limits or we will have none.”
While Seattleites marched through the rain to condemn Chinese residents, the city of Tacoma mobilized into an organized, exclusionary force that would soon see the forced removal of hundreds.
“The sentiment manifested plainly showed that a period had been reached when united action would have to be taken against further Chinese intrusion.”
Federal troops and the U.S. Army move to break the nationwide rail strike, with tensions running high in Seattle, Tacoma, and Snohomish.
“They might have stood among the great throng that shouted: 'Crucify them,' but we, the Americans, in thought and actions, command a halt to these proceedings.”
A masked party of fifty men broke into the courthouse to extract and hang a convicted assailant and a murder defendant, while a jury slept just feet away.
“The mob bound them hand and foot, dragged them from the jail to the second floor landing of the courthouse... adjusted a noose about each victim's neck, and hurled them out to dangle and die.”
After Hill and Parker were lynched in Colfax, Attorney General W. C. Jones ruled that the county need not pay for a coroner's inquest—and said the real hunt for the mob belonged to a grand jury.
“Everybody knew that these men were hung by a mob and a case was presented for an investigation, not by a coroner's jury, but either by a grand jury or the prosecuting attorney.”
A glue pot disaster in a paint shop levels sixty-four acres of Seattle’s business district, triggering a massive regional relief effort.
“The city of Seattle, the pride of Washington, is in ashes. A hurricane of fire has swept over the queenly city and she is in ruins.”
The City Marshal’s report casually mentions the forced removal of fifty-five people, including Chinese and Black residents, as the council focuses on fire codes.
A bloody confrontation between I.W.W. free-speech protesters and a citizens' posse leaves six dead and scores wounded on the Everett waterfront.
“The fight must be won.”
While city leaders in Seattle urged calm, residents in Tacoma forcibly expelled the Chinese community, marking a dark escalation in the regional movement to purge Asian workers.
“The committee of ten appointed by the first anti-Chinese Congress hereby calls a second anti-Chinese congress to be held at Olympia... to adopt a thorough system for further action towards excluding the Chinese from the Territory.”
When a mob drove Aberdeen’s Chinese community out of town and stole $550, the county’s prosecuting attorney charged the victims with libel instead of the perpetrators—sparking a furious editorial defense of civil rights in 1890.
When an angry mob corralled the Chinese community on a warehouse dock, a steamer captain navigated the line between keeping the peace and resisting a forced expulsion.
“The entire city seemed to be subject to their control. There were no threats to speak of, nor tendency toward mob violence—simply a determined uprising that might result in something serious if its purpose were in any way impeded.”
A Chinese man, caught in the crosshairs of local unrest, seeks refuge and dignity by claiming a past as a decorated American soldier.
“The fact of his being less than forty years of age when he was a brave soldier, and of the changes in his facial features, does not bother him at all.”
Testimony from an acting police chief details the systematic expulsion of Chinese residents from Seattle during the violent anti-Chinese riots of February 1886.
“The mob started gathering... I saw two or three hundred white men there. The packing up commenced was not over three quarters of an hour.”
Under immense community pressure and threats of violence in 1885, Chinese residents of Seattle report on their forced liquidation of property and preparations to leave the city.
“It looks as though the Chinamen have no protection under the law. ... I never saw such a world as this. If the people were going to drive us out, they should have said so before we invested our money here.”
A devastating fire levels the Chinese quarter in Tacoma, leaving the community in ruins and stoking the fires of anti-Chinese agitation.
“Chinatown a mass of smoking ruins, and this city, it is hoped, will know such a place no more.”
Colonel Haines recounts the chaos, the failed efforts to contain the 1889 fire with explosives, and the deployment of the National Guard to maintain order amidst the ashes.
“The air was full of smoke and the shouts of people carrying their goods to places of safety, and the streets were full of trunks and boxes and goods thrown from the burning buildings.”
In 1885, citizens of Bellingham signed a pledge to systematically boycott and remove their Chinese neighbors, marking a dark chapter in Washington's labor and social history.
“The undersigned do solemnly pledge and promise, upon our honor as citizens, that we will not... patronize Chinese laundries or give employment to Chinese in any capacity.”
Local business leaders force a tense public confrontation with the Northern Pacific Railroad president over land monopolies and deferred development.
“We have here today a busy, bustling city of 12,000 inhabitants which has sprung into existence absolutely without the aid of the railroad and in spite of its opposition.”
As the anti-Chinese movement spreads through the Pacific Northwest, agitators in Seattle and Tacoma organize a campaign of expulsion, claiming the city's prosperity is at risk.
“It was the old, old story. The whites were gradually crowded to the wall. Now, however, the people are aroused, and have sent forth their fiat that the Chinese must move.”
A malicious false alarm of a plague quarantine triggers a fatal panic in a Seattle dance hall.
“The scene that followed was wild in the extreme. Men and women, both white and colored, rushed for the exits.”
Salvador Pecani, once sentenced to hang for a brutal crime, is set free after the Supreme Court rules the evidence against him purely circumstantial.
“The only theory upon which the verdict of the jury can be accounted for is the great excitement at the time of the murder, together with the fact that the accused was a foreigner and believed to be of an inferior race.”
A violent cyclone-like windstorm tears through Western Washington, leveling buildings and trapping citizens in the debris.
“The trees bent before it, the buildings shook and the Salvation Army tent at Front and Battery streets was laid level with the ground.”
A lone police officer stands his ground against a railroad crew in a decades-long property dispute.
“If you tell me to soak my head, I'll take you in.”
Sheriff Woolery and saloon man John Considine tried to seize a Republican primary by arresting the election judges; Chief Rogers and his police fought back with warrants, clubs and drawn revolvers.
““I will shoot if you approach nearer.” — W. L. Meredith, holding a revolver inside the polling place”
A violent confrontation between Chinese immigrants and customs officials over thousands of dollars leaves three people severely wounded and a search for truth.
“He says that it was his money he was fighting for and not the opium.”
When federal troops tried to stop construction on the Puyallup reservation, Indigenous laborers and their allies literally rolled the government's attempts out of the way.
“Mrs. James Coates, the wife of an ex-chief, wielded an ax and defied the government to interfere with the Indians while at work on their own patented lands.”
When rumors swirled of a pro-Chinese organization in Seattle, the city’s labor leaders and local officials met to define the limits of the anti-Chinese movement.
“When white men are required to mine and sail to take the same wages given to Chinamen... they naturally feel unjustly dealt with.”
A Victoria-based steamer brazenly docks at the city landing in broad daylight to coal up, while its captain blurs his ship's identity to evade detection.
“The captain... takes the palm for pure gall in a foreign port.”
When bailiffs arrived at a Seattle boarding house to evict residents, they were met with a barricaded door, a hail of rocks, and a community standing their ground.
“The property had been turned into a virtual fort, with the second floor defended by a group of men armed with rifles and barricaded behind the loopholed walls.”
Pilot Gatter recounts the terrifying moments when the steamer Glenogle collided with the passenger liner Kingston in Puget Sound, sending hundreds of feet of steel into the water.
A traveler recounts their journey across the continent to find a city 'wiped out' but miraculously still standing, thriving in tents and determined to rebuild.
“The roots of the city's business were deeply imbedded in its very soil; and its growth, cut off in a limited space, already with amazing quickness, and with a vigor which proves its vitality, is beginning to show itself.”
A catastrophic fire destroys thirty blocks of Spokane's business district, echoing the recent destruction in Seattle.
“The city is doomed. Already two blocks of business houses are gone, and the fire is jumping the streets and traveling rapidly.”
How the city’s early pioneers fought a cutthroat land-monopoly struggle to ensure Seattle would not be sidelined by the Northern Pacific Railroad.
“The grand record it affords of hope under the most dispiriting circumstances, of pecuniary sacrifice, of patient endurance and undaunted courage, cannot be surpassed by any community.”
In 1885, a Seattle judge delivered a scathing rebuke to a grand jury and the public, condemning anti-Chinese conspiracy and defending the right of all laborers—regardless of race or origin—to equal protection under the law.
“A free government is no respecter of persons. It cannot give to one class more rights than to others without abridging the rights of those others.”
A devastating fire leaves 12 city blocks in ruins, highlighting the catastrophic failure of the local water system.
“The water supply was totally inadequate and another was turned on from the hydrants, only to prove the city waterworks were useless in an emergency and could not be depended on.”
In 1890, the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and Union Pacific converged on Seattle, transforming the city from a remote settlement into a global Pacific terminus.
“I intend to have a road like a rake, with Seattle at the focal point, and prongs that reach all the principal cities of the Northwest.”
In a tense courtroom session in 1885, a defendant stands trial for the murder of a Chinese laborer, exposing the brutal reality of anti-immigrant violence in Washington Territory.
“The boys were then getting ready to go over to Wold Brothers. The night was dark. I went along with them for a mile or so, but fearing we would get into trouble, I turned behind.”
Following the devastating 1889 fire that leveled the city’s business district, residents and business owners scramble to reorganize amidst the ruins of the downtown core.
“Seattle, only yesterday, was one of the most flourishing cities of the Northwest... the fire should obtain such tremendous headway in a town which is almost an island.”
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