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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 421 |
| 1877 | 288 |
| 1878 | 80 |
| 1880 | 80 |
869 stories
- The Mayor’s Peaches and the City’s Panic: A Night of Burglary in Pioneer Square
Burglars break into Mayor Gattert’s home on Third Street, fleeing with nothing but a can of peaches, while public outrage over crime reaches a fever pitch.
- The Stinking Gutters of 1876
While Seattle promoters bragged of a salubrious climate, a local newspaper editorial exposed the reality of deadly, stagnant cesspools lining the streets.
- The Radical Doctor of Seattle
An 1876 lecture at the local Opera House challenges the city's elites, railing against the morality of wealth, the indignity of labor, and the hypocrisy of the church.
- The Centennial Fourth: Seattle's 1876 Independence Day Extravaganza
Before the skyscrapers, Seattle celebrated the nation's 100th birthday with a massive, carefully choreographed procession of coal miners, firemen, and laborers winding through the dusty streets of a growing frontier town.
- The Spirit of '76: Seattle’s Grand Centennial Celebration
A meticulous guide to how Seattleites organized their first massive city-wide celebration of the American Centennial in 1876, featuring a parade, a regatta, and grand fireworks.
- The Centennial Fourth: Seattle's 1876 Celebration
On the eve of the nation's hundredth birthday, Seattle grapples with patriotic fervor, civic fire safety, and a growing political divide.
- The Centennial Vision for a Frontier Metropolis
On the 100th anniversary of American Independence, a local orator laid out a grand—and strikingly prescient—economic blueprint for the future of Seattle and Washington Territory.
- The Day Seattle Woke Up: A Traveler’s Rave Review of the 'Metropolitan' Future
In July 1870, a San Francisco correspondent returns from a voyage down the coast and is stunned by the rapid transformation of his hometown into a booming commercial hub.
- The Great Escape: Professor Baldwin’s Spectacular Deception in Seattle
In July 1876, a traveling spiritualist and escape artist took over Yeager's Hall, challenging the public to witness his 'human agency' escapes from handcuffs and pillories, exposing the mediums of the day as frauds.
- Broken Bones at the Capstan
A dangerous industrial accident aboard the steamer Chehalis nearly claims a life in Lake Washington.
- A Sharp Critique of Christian Patriarchy
A biting anonymous editorial lampoons the hypocrisy of Seattle’s clergy regarding women’s rights.
- Tragic Industrial Accident at Freeport Mill
A worker suffers severe injuries in a mill accident, sparking a desperate plea for his recovery.
- Bullets Through the Parlor: A Waterfront Shooting Spree Terrifies a Seattle Family
A late-night rifle-and-revolver crowd near Stone & Burnett's wharf has turned Mrs. P. Andrews's house into a target, and police still cannot find the shooters.
- The City’s Dirty Secret: A Plea for Seattle’s Health
In 1870, a local editorial warns that Seattle’s lack of sewage infrastructure is poisoning the community with disease, urging citizens to prioritize public health over fiscal caution.
- The Chinese Question: Seattle’s Editorial War Over Labor and 'Vermin'
In October 1876, the *Seattle Daily Intelligencer* published a blistering editorial defending Chinese laborers while simultaneously dehumanizing them as carriers of disease, revealing the complex economic dependencies and racial tensions of early Washington Territory.
- The Man Who Walked the Continent: A Fifteen-Year Pilgrimage Ends in Seattle
Frank M. Streamer arrives in the Pacific Northwest after completing a staggering 14,000-mile journey on foot across the United States, offering a rare glimpse into the grueling reality of 19th-century travel.
- The Hidden River Beneath University Street
When Seattle’s early engineers paved over a local creek, nature fought back during the autumn rains.
- The Logging Logjam: A Close Call on the Seattle Waterfront
When a chain of logs broke loose on the Seattle waterfront, a sudden collision nearly spelled disaster for a steamship navigating the dark bay.
- A High-Stakes Gamble at the Front Street Poker Table
A desperate gambler nearly takes his own life after a losing streak in Seattle's underworld, only to be saved by a sudden twist of fortune.
- The Exhausting Wait: How Seattle's 1874 Election Paralyzed the City
After election clerks were locked in a hall for thirty hours to tally votes, local journalists decried the bureaucratic slog as a 'quarry slave' ordeal that turned even the most patient men into irritable, sleep-deprived ruins.
- The Stranger at the Clarendon Hotel
A young man arrives in Seattle, keeps to himself, and ends his life in a locked hotel room, leaving behind only a name that may not be his own.
- The City's Cruel Moral Crusade
While Seattle’s leadership touted its own 'progress,' a wave of arrests and displacement targeted the city's Chinese population and the vulnerable on the margins of society.
- Rain Turns Early Seattle's Front Street to Mud
When heavy rains turned downtown thoroughfares into impassable quagmires, residents demanded better engineering than the temporary, 'penny-wise' patch jobs of the 1870s.
- The Duwamish River's Unexpected Log-Clearing Service
A winter flood on the Duwamish River brought chaos to local farmland, but farmers found a silver lining in the disaster.
- Sidewalk Perils: A Nightly Hazard in Early Seattle
A pedestrian’s nasty fall into an open eight-foot pit sparks a public call for the city to fix dangerous, unmaintained infrastructure.