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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1871 | 8 |
| 1872 | 110 |
| 1876 | 122 |
| 1877 | 95 |
| 1878 | 216 |
| 1879 | 10 |
| 1880 | 62 |
623 stories
- The Price of Industrial Expansion
A sheriff’s auction reveals the crushing debt behind the rise of Seattle’s coal industry in the 1870s.
- The Price of Frontier Survival: A Seattle Sheriff's Sale
A 1878 legal notice reveals a bleak snapshot of life in early Seattle, where debt-ridden families faced the auction block under the gaze of a booming young city.
- A Steep Price for Three Dollars' Worth of Wood
A father and his fifteen-year-old son were sentenced to pay a staggering fine—$46 total—after being caught pilfering scrap lumber from the city wharf.
- The Great Telegraph Trail Escape
After fleeing the King County jail, two prisoners find that their path to freedom in Mukilteo was blocked by the unforgiving woods and an unexpected encounter with a local resident.
- The Newspaper Feud of 1876
A local editor’s blistering public breakdown of an auditor who dared to write letters to the editor.
- The Disappearing Patient of King County
A small-statured man, well-dressed in slate colors, walks out of the Territorial Insane Asylum and vanishes without a trace.
- Seattle’s Desperate Need for Modern Firefighting
As the city rapidly expands, the Common Council scrambles to replace inadequate, antiquated fire gear before a disaster strikes.
- The Price of Sin in Pioneer Seattle
While the city's elite debated municipal elections and infrastructure, a thief made off with a trunk full of coins and jewelry from a house on the margins of society.
- The Hustlers of the Waterfront: Regulating Seattle's Hotel Runners
In 1878, the Seattle City Council cracked down on the aggressive solicitors who haunted the docks, requiring them to wear badges and pay a quarterly tax for the right to hawk boarding houses.
- Seattle’s Early 1878 Council Meetings
Before the skyline, the city was built on ordinances, grain dryers, and the push for a trans-mountain railroad.
- The Day the Talking Machine Arrived in Seattle
In 1878, Seattle citizens gathered at Yesler’s Hall for a demonstration of Thomas Edison's 'wonderful invention' that could capture and replay human speech.
- The Secret Benefactor of a Struggling Seattle Teacher
A modest schoolteacher discovers that her late aunt, a wealthy woman she hardly knew, had been paying her bills in secret long before the surprising terms of her will were revealed.
- Republican Defectors in Duwamish
A political primary in the Duwamish precinct saw a surprising shift, with voters rejecting a Garfield endorsement in a vote that signaled growing political friction in 1880 Seattle.
- The Hidden Stakes in Seattle's Founding
A legal dispute over Dr. David Maynard’s 640-acre donation claim reveals the overlooked property rights of his late wife, Lydia A. Maynard.
- The Great Seattle Land Foreclosure of 1878
A sweeping list of hundreds of local property owners faced with losing their land to the county for unpaid taxes, signaling the precarious nature of early Seattle real estate.
- The Delinquent Tax Rolls of Territorial Seattle
A haunting, granular list of property owners from 1875 and 1876 whose land was seized by the county, documenting the precarious nature of early Seattle ownership.
- Seattle's 1878 Auction of Property for Unpaid Taxes
When the city of Seattle moved to liquidate the private property of its citizens to cover a year of unpaid taxes.
- Seattle’s 1878 Auction of Delinquent Tax Properties
When the city's growth outpaced its residents' pockets, dozens of Seattle properties were put on the auction block to cover delinquent taxes.
- The Price of Failure on the Duwamish
As Seattle grew, a wave of court-ordered property auctions flooded the local papers, displacing families and settling debt with the cold finality of the sheriff’s gavel.
- The Price of Seattle’s Growth: A 1878 Land Liquidation
A wave of court-ordered property auctions in 1878 reveals the precarious nature of land ownership and debt in early Seattle, as local families and businesses faced the loss of their holdings.
- A.A. Denny’s Seattle Addition Lots Sold at 1878 Sheriff’s Sale
A sheriff’s notice reveals the brutal efficiency of debt collection in 1878, as land in Denny’s Addition and the Duwamish River banks are liquidated to satisfy private loans.
- The Price of Seattle's Expansion: A Sheriff's Sale
Legal notices from 1878 reveal a community grappling with debt, foreclosures, and the relentless churn of land ownership in the rapidly developing territory of Washington.
- A.A. Denny's Addition Property Sold for 1878 Judgments
A wave of sheriff's sales across King County in 1878 signals the brutal fallout of debt and property litigation in a young, boom-and-bust frontier city.
- The Price of Development in 1878
A wave of land foreclosures hits King County as local settlers see their riverfront properties seized to satisfy debt.
- The Price of Panic: Seattle's 1878 Foreclosure Wave
A legal notice detailing the seizure of property in Seattle and King County reveals a landscape defined by debt, land disputes, and the brutal finality of the Sheriff’s gavel.