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Old newspapers, pinned to the places they wrote about — the streets you can still walk today.
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While D.C. legislators bickered over the Northern Pacific Railroad's land grants and portage routes, Washington Territory settlers fought to secure their homestead rights against corporate expansion.
“It is reasonable and just, and the rights of all persons under this act may be enforced by judicial proceedings in any court of competent jurisdiction.”
A jilted lover's lawsuit in the Lewis River country unravels a bizarre family scheme to pass a son off as a different man to save the family farm from seizure.
“Hobbs in the meantime had doctored the personal appearance of his son by patching hair there, padding his shoulders, and gifting him a newly acquired suit. In this shape he was smuggled into Kalama by night.”
After a failed suicide attempt and legal appeals reaching the State Supreme Court, the murderer of Thomas Clinton Beebe faces the scaffold in Kalama.
“Day walked with a steady step, ascending the scaffold without the assistance of any one. He made a speech to those present in a loud and distinct voice.”
Robert Day, held for murder near Woodland, is spared a lynching by 'cooler heads' at a Kerns mass meeting — but Cowlitz County's anger is barely contained.
“He told a Portland young man who saw him at Kalama a day or two ago, that he shot men just to see them fall.”
A Kalama rancher is accused of murdering his neighbor in a long-standing land quarrel, allegedly egged on by his wife.
“When she saw that the first shot failed to stop Keller, she shouted: 'Shoot him again.'”
A railroad conductor is killed in a derailment caused by an improperly filled track crossing.
“Butler’s body being nearly covered by the debris, his face and limbs being torn and mangled horribly.”
Uncontrolled forest fires rage across Washington Territory, destroying logging camps and infrastructure with no end in sight.
“The fire rages so that no one can make an investigation, but everything in the woods now will burn until a hard rain puts it out.”
An unusually cool spring held a winter's worth of snow until a few hot days sent it all down at once, flooding the Skagit, Cowlitz and Columbia, drowning farmland and putting Portland under water.
“The Skagit river raised above all past recollection. Mining operations upon that river and its tributaries are indefinitely suspended.”
Railroad expansion threatens to shift the center of Pacific Northwest shipping from the Columbia River to the Puget Sound.
“From the day that witnesses the driving of the last spike on the Portland-Kalama link the glory and importance of Portland as a shipping point will begin to depart.”
A routine workplace injury leads to a tragic and sudden death for a ship carpenter.
“Some time ago he ran a nail in his hand and from this blood poisoning set in, resulting in his death.”
Ezra Meeker, the pioneer who spanned the era from ox-carts to airplanes, faces a final struggle as he fights for his health.
“He has seen the state develop from a struggling territory, where there were scarcely citizens enough to fill all the offices, to the present flourishing state.”
Washington Territory’s Democrats gather in Kalama to organize their bid for statehood and select a delegate to Congress.
“We are in favor of a speedy admission of the Territory of Washington into the Union as a State, and to that end we will lend our united efforts.”
A dance floor dispute over a lady leads to a violent knife fight between an English athlete and a local man, leaving a town stunned by the sudden bloodshed.
“Both men had been drinking. They danced in Close's saloon, and McKliskey proved the best dancer. This angered McDonald, who wanted to fight McKliskey.”
A young man encounters a spectral presence behind a local church, sparking a mystery that has the town of Kalama whispering.
“The thing began to rise, but not in the usual human way. It rose straight up.”
A newlywed woman narrowly escapes drowning after falling into the river while returning from a wedding trip.
“The honeymoon of Mr. and Mrs. Charles G. Dehning of Napavine came very near being brought to a sudden and pathetic close at Kalama.”
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