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Old newspapers, pinned to the places they wrote about — the streets you can still walk today.
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The high court rules that Congress has the power to abrogate treaties, effectively ending the entry of Chinese laborers to the United States.
“The decision of the supreme court is the death blow to a new form of slavery that was creeping upon us.”
After catastrophic blazes in Seattle, Vancouver, Ellensburg, and Spokane, the Mason County Journal sounds the alarm for Shelton to modernize its water system.
“It looks decidedly as though this work was organized incendiarism, and no one can tell when it will stop.”
A woman living in a remote log cabin on the Skokomish river suffers a mental breakdown caused by profound isolation.
“I lived so long in that lonely place, and I got so nervous. I just lost my equilibrium and somehow I cannot get it back.”
Four Indigenous couples at Skokomish hold a ceremony to secure legal recognition of their long-standing marriages.
“These couples have lived together many years, legally from the Indian standpoint, but there is some doubt whether Uncle Sam will in the future recognize the legality of their aboriginal transaction.”
A lifelong firearms expert and pioneer gunsmith meets a tragic, accidental end at his home near Shelton.
“The accident of Saturday is yet another lesson that one cannot be too careful in handling firearms, and that although a person has used guns all his long life, he is not exempt from accident.”
A Satsop Railroad locomotive plunges off the tracks after hitting a fallen tree in the fire-choked timberlands near Shelton.
“Engineer Shorter whistled down brakes, opened the sand, reversed his engine, opened the throttle wide, and jumped just as the engine left the track.”
Washington Territory’s new constitution asserts public control over tide lands and navigable waters, setting a precedent for state ownership of the coast.
“The state of Washington asserts its ownership to the beds and shores of all navigable waters in the state.”
After three years of legal maneuvering for the murder of hotel keeper Harry Conner and arson at Shelton’s Grand Hotel, the convicted killer is finally released on $1,000 bail.
Creditors force closure of the Mason County institution following reports of bad management and dwindling public confidence.
“The trouble is due partly to mismanagement, as there appears to be no evidence of misappropriation of funds, most of which are out on notes.”
On the Washington Southern's first run near Shelton, a tree bridging a sand cut killed a brakeman and a tender man before the engine could stop. The town mourned two young workers.
“The accident has thrown a cloud of sadness over the entire town.”
A quiet surveying expedition in the Washington timberlands turns into a tense standoff over local property rights.
“The inhabitants are determined to fight. It is considered cruel for the forces to occupy the town and then withdraw, leaving the people helpless.”
Two men face legal consequences after a construction car collision on the Satsop rail line.
“The act endangered the lives of those on board as well as the train.”
A two-hundred-and-forty-pound man looking to challenge a bear in a local exhibition is unceremoniously knocked out by a woman in the dining room.
“The people of our little town are much pleased that our obliging dining room girl can get away with a two hundred and forty pound bear wrestler.”
As Washington prepares for statehood, a contentious legal struggle over the future of tide lands begins to take shape.
“The owners of property abutting upon a tide that ebbs and flows are known as littoral or shore owners. These last named persons can by no possible means known to the law acquire any legal rights in the soil between high and low water mark.”
A look at the rapid expansion of logging in the Puget Sound region, where the arrival of railroads and new machinery is accelerating the harvest of timber once thought to be endless.
“This amount is considered by some as a quantity inexhaustible. But if such a person were to be living 50 years hence, he would see our great forests had so fast disappeared.”
When the town’s dominant lumber company controlled the land, the children and the schoolhouse were left to fend for themselves.
“What do they care whether there is a good school or not?—the boys will be able to handle just as much lumber for them when they are a few years older.”
By consolidating operations and forcing loggers into company-controlled boarding houses, the industry’s giants effectively reduced worker pay while crushing independent competition.
“The object is to concentrate the logging business in the hands of a few operators, reduce the wages in general, and combine to enforce the reductions.”
A fourteen-year-old boy, famous for fighting off a cougar as a child, is shot after being mistaken for a deer near Shelton.
“The shot was fired from a 38-58 Winchester, the ball entering his stomach three inches above the navel and passing out near the backbone.”
A squatter fights for the right to claim a six-acre island that the federal government officially claims doesn't exist.
“The land office refuses to accept a filing for the reason that the island is not shown on the plat of official government survey.”
Claimants in Shelton fight for their right to oyster beds, ignoring the warnings of 'boodle' newspapers.
“They claim to have created the oyster beds sought by them, and therefore demand that the same be sold to them in accordance with the laws of the state.”
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