Research the archive
Narrow 27,002 newspaper stories by words, years, place, newspaper and subject. See when and where they ran, then download what you find.
Put a phrase in quotes ("rent strike") or leave a word out with a minus (strike -baseball). Old scans misspell names, so when little is found, near-spellings are offered.
Refine2 on
Show the numbers
| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1897 | 8 |
| 1898 | 22 |
| 1899 | 2 |
32 stories
- The Ghost Town of a Pioneer's Dream
A German immigrant spends decades waiting for his Puget Sound homestead to become a metropolis, only to see the boom vanish as quickly as it arrived.
- The Klondike Gold Rush and the Northwest Farmer
As thousands flock to the Alaskan gold fields, regional agriculturalists anticipate a massive economic windfall from the sudden demand for food.
- The Battle for the White River Valley
Farmers rally against a plan to divert the White River, fearing a return to the devastating floods that ruined their land.
- The Wheat Broker Who Vanished With the Proceeds
A Spokane County farmer shipped wheat to a Seattle commission firm and got nothing back. The office was empty, the operator was in San Francisco, and the paper called it deliberate fraud.
- When the Brewery Trust Told a State Inspector to Bring It On
A dairy commissioner orders dairymen to stop feeding cows wet brewers' grain. The Seattle Brewing and Malting Co. writes back that the National Brewers' Association will fund the fight — and dares him to take it to court.
- The Fumigation Didn't Take: Live Scale Found on Japanese Oranges
A King County fruit-growers' committee inspects a shipment of imported oranges that the state's own commissioner had fumigated, finds the mealy bug and scale still alive, and demands stricter enforcement before the fruit goes on sale.
- The Wholesaler Tells the Growers the Truth: 'We Don't Love You'
Sixteen years in the Seattle commission trade and no patience left, R. Merchant tells a room of fruit growers that no middleman has ever cared about them — and that neat, uniform packing, not grievance, is the only thing that ever got a farmer paid.
- A Tiny Office, No Warehouse, and a Load of Cut-Rate Onions
A Seattle commission house is drawing attention with suspiciously cheap produce, and a farm paper warns Northwest growers to check the books before they ship.
- A Thousand Dogs for the Klondike
A Seattle syndicate imported stray dogs by the carload from Chicago, trained them to haul gold-rush supplies, and kenneled the pack in an abandoned brickyard.
- Every Street a Sled Trail: Seattle Breaks in Dog Teams for the Klondike
In the winter of 1898 the thoroughfares of the Sound cities turned into training grounds — sleds, go-devils and sail-carts everywhere, companies buying and selling sled dogs at $25 to $100 a team, and one man solemnly breaking in a team of billy goats.
- Seattle's Fruit Growers Take On the Wholesalers — and City Hall
A lively meeting of the King County Fruitgrowers' Society pushes for a cooperative cannery, hears a pioneer judge denounce the middlemen who ship in California's cast-offs, and calls out a city council that once tried to license peddlers out of business.
- Seattle Sets Its Sights on Honolulu's Grocery List
A Seattle schooner sails for the islands with flour, hay and shingles aboard, and Hawaiian importers begin to wonder whether they still need San Francisco at all.
- Railroads Raise the Freight on a Crop Already at Rock Bottom
A half-cent-a-pound shipping increase hits Washington hop growers just as overproduction and lice drive prices to their lowest ebb.
- The Dairy King of the Northwest
How a Seattle entrepreneur consolidated the regional dairy market by centralizing production and expanding into international trade.
- The Mystery of the Curdled Cream
A Falls City dairyman and a professor clash over a strange bacterial contamination affecting local butter production.
- The Butter Fraud Crackdown
State officials threaten public exposure for wholesalers passing off cheap eastern butter as premium Washington creamery product.
- Enumclaw Farmers Cut Out the Insurance Companies
Tired of paying premiums to distant corporations, farmers around Enumclaw formed their own mutual fire and lightning insurance company — one neighbor pledging to help another.
- Milk Prices Jump as Condensed Milk Company Shakes Up Dairy Market
A new condensed milk plant has driven milk prices to their highest in years, delighting farmers in the White River Valley—but the company needs more milk before it can move to Kent.
- Neglected Roads in Fremont
A local farmer criticizes Seattle city authorities for failing to maintain the road through Fremont.
- The War on Narrow Wagon Wheels
Seattle's Chamber of Commerce wants the legislature to force wider wagon tires — to save the city's wooden sidewalks and brick streets from being chewed to pieces.
- While Seattle Chased Klondike Gold, Portland Quietly Bought the Farm
An 1897 editorial warns Puget Sound that its Klondike outfitting boom is blinding it to a $150 million agricultural trade that Portland is stealing from the inland Northwest.
- Six Restaurants, One Sacrificial Lamb: Seattle's War on Fake Butter
Six Seattle restaurants caught passing oleomargarine off as butter cut a deal with the dairy commissioner — but not before white proprietors tried to make the Japanese owner of the California take the fall.
- The Mealy Bug Standoff at the Seattle Docks
A county inspector orders 800 boxes of Japanese oranges stripped and fumigated. A horticultural commissioner softens the ruling—and the Japanese consul watches closely.
- The Bug Inspector Who Called Himself a Crank — and Warned That Japanese Oranges Could Wreck Washington's Orchards
A King County insect inspector accuses the state horticultural commissioner of botching a fumigation order, then warns that the scale insects riding in on imported Japanese oranges could become "a curse to one of Washington's greatest industries."
- A Farmers’ Paper Warns: Don’t Ship to This Commission Firm
Ranch and Range says the Washington Fruit and Produce Union left Tacoma accounts unsettled and is now trying to do business in Seattle.