To our readers
Old newspapers, pinned to the places they wrote about — the streets you can still walk today.
Showing Leavenworth only. Show the whole archive · browse other towns
A passenger train falls into a washed-out track near Leavenworth, leaving three dead and passengers clinging to life in the mountain currents.
“Using themselves as a life line, the rescuers got the dead and injured from the banks, where the fast rising river threatened to engulf them.”
Leavenworth citizens dynamited the Cascade Hotel to halt a massive inferno, narrowly avoiding a secondary disaster.
“The Cascade hotel was blown up with dynamite to check the further spread of the flames.”
A wage dispute between a laborer and an investment manager turned deadly in Leavenworth.
“Davidson had a claim against the company for labor performed... and he was restless about the payment thereof.”
For the third time in seven years, a massive fire tears through Leavenworth's business district, leaving town leaders to grapple with a lack of water, no fire department, and the question of how to rebuild from nothing.
“When one stops to think how easily... these buildings might have been saved, had the town been provided with some kind of fire protection, it would appear as if the town could be indicted for criminal negligence.”
A vigilante gang is terrorizing settlers and extorting newcomers on government land in Okanogan County.
“He will soon be waited upon in the still watches of the night by the whitecaps, who plunder his cabin, tear down his improvements, and give the victim of their ill will one hour in which to leave the country.”
When Democratic senators tried to expose the secrets behind the Panama Canal, they inadvertently revealed a web of European intrigue that bolstered the case for American intervention.
“The Democratic senators, in an attempt to dig a pit for the President, have dug one for themselves.”
After a devastating blaze nearly wiped out a city block, the Leavenworth Echo urged residents to trade frontier luck for modern infrastructure.
“The utterly helpless way in which people gazed at their property as it was rapidly vanishing in smoke would have been ludicrous if it had not been a serious matter.”
A railroad worker is killed in the deep drifts near Leavenworth, leaving behind only a name he likely invented and a slip of paper with a California address.
“John Clayton belonged to the flotsam and jetsam of humanity. He was one of that vast army of men that are constantly going from one place to another.”
When the Great Northern Railway’s representative warned against incorporation, Leavenworth’s citizens voted down their own cityhood to stay in the good graces of the railroad boss.
“As Mr. Hill has such a vigorous and emphatic way of making his displeasure known, few care to lead an opposition to him.”
Construction along the Great Northern line brings a chaotic boom to mountain settlements, featuring lawless towns, massive snowslides, and precarious tobogganing.
“A conductor witnessed twenty-nine distinct fights in one night.”
A ten-year-old boy, known for his relentless work ethic delivering papers through the deep winter snows, passes away after a two-week battle with diphtheria.
“During the winter months when the snow was so deep it seemed almost an impossibility for a child of his size to hold his position, he managed always to be on hand promptly with his papers.”
James Tierney, a veteran switchback conductor on the Great Northern line, was fatally injured in an industrial accident near Leavenworth.
“Tierney was 37 years old, and one of the most efficient and popular men on the line.”
Engineers successfully close the gap in a massive new dam, marking a turning point in the effort to harness the region's wild water for industry.
“The water of the Wenatchee river has been surging and tumbling in protest of the restraint that has been put on it for the past month.”
A teenager working for the Great Northern Railway was struck by a train while waiting for a shift change near Leavenworth.
“After he had finished his shift he laid down beside the track and went to sleep waiting for a second shift.”
When an infectious disease forced the closure of the local school, the town’s newspaper demanded accountability, questioning why infected children were permitted in the classroom.
“Whose business is it to look after the interests of the public schools? Experience has shown that the spread of disease is very often traced to the schools where children are crowded in warm rooms.”
A newly reorganized mining firm prepares to open a twenty-stamp mill, signaling a massive ramp-up in North Cascades gold extraction.
“It requires capital, energy and labor to get a proposition of this kind to producing, but when it is once in shape it is a splendid business, a benefit to all and a detriment to none.”
An engine wiper is jailed at Wenatchee for the drunken-brawl killing of a Great Northern locomotive engineer who leaves four children behind.
“The two men were in a saloon at the time of the fight and it was carried out into the street, when Van Buskirk picked up a brick and killed the deceased.”
A correspondent reports on the daily chaos and 'gun plays' defining the rough-and-tumble life in the settlement near Wenatchee.
“Fighting there is a demonstrative but not always a mirth-provoking pastime, eighteen being witnessed in a single day last week.”
No stories match these filters.
Try a wider date range, another category, or clear everything and start again.