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.
Refine1 on
Show the numbers
| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 3 |
| 1858 | 13 |
| 1859 | 27 |
| 1860 | 6 |
| 1861 | 6 |
| 1863 | 5 |
| 1872 | 1 |
| 1876 | 11 |
| 1877 | 11 |
| 1878 | 12 |
| 1879 | 5 |
| 1880 | 3 |
| 1882 | 3 |
| 1883 | 56 |
| 1884 | 25 |
| 1885 | 43 |
| 1886 | 26 |
| 1887 | 70 |
| 1888 | 34 |
| 1889 | 76 |
| 1890 | 6 |
| 1891 | 48 |
| 1892 | 267 |
| 1893 | 263 |
| 1894 | 243 |
| 1895 | 182 |
| 1897 | 1 |
| 1898 | 7 |
| 1899 | 30 |
| 1900 | 1 |
| 1903 | 64 |
| 1904 | 848 |
| 1905 | 2 |
| 1907 | 7 |
| 1908 | 1 |
| 1909 | 758 |
| 1910 | 5 |
| 1912 | 1 |
| 1914 | 3 |
| 1916 | 9 |
| 1917 | 5 |
| 1918 | 1 |
| 1923 | 2 |
| 1924 | 4 |
| 1925 | 1 |
3,195 stories
- Shocking Lawsuit Filed Over Faulty Electrical Socket
A local mother sues for $20,045 after her six-year-old son was paralyzed by an electrical jolt from a home light fixture.
- City Wins Long Battle Over Northern Pacific Land
Tacoma secures major property concessions worth half a million dollars after a two-year fight with the railroad.
- U.S. Marshal Transports Prisoners to McNeil Island
A roundup of prisoners sent to the federal penitentiary highlights the era's aggressive and exclusionary legal climate.
- Grand Jury Digs Into the Restricted District
A secret investigation into local vice and government corruption begins, with former inhabitants of Tacoma's restricted district called to testify.
- The Disappearing Developer
A local real estate operator vanishes, leaving behind a trail of dishonored checks, uncompleted houses, and angry creditors across Tacoma.
- Terror on the Rails
Saboteurs remove a rail from the Northern Pacific track near Buckley, nearly killing hundreds in a deliberate act of destruction.
- Smallpox Outbreak Hits McNeil Island Penitentiary
An outbreak of smallpox has reached the federal penitentiary at McNeil Island, sparking a vaccination drive and fears of wider contagion.
- Puyallup Tribe Reclaims Agency Over Their Land
Defying federal 'red tape' and the Wilson Bill, the Puyallup Tribe organizes their own land company to handle railroad right-of-way construction on their own terms.
- The Fight Over Chinese Immigration
Tensions mount as authorities in Puget Sound and Portland scramble to manage the arrival of Chinese travelers and the enforcement of the Geary Act.
- The Unsolved Disappearance of Peter Stanup
Community anxiety grows in Tacoma over the vanishing of a prominent Puyallup leader, with theories of foul play and political suppression circulating.
- Legal Resistance to Deportation
Attorney Marshall K. Snell challenges the illegal detention of three Chinese merchants by federal authorities in Tacoma.
- The Struggle for the Puyallup Mission
Puyallup tribal members resist government-imposed church leadership.
- The 'Rat' Ledger and the Union Strike
After the Tacoma Ledger arbitrarily cut printers' wages by 30 percent, the labor union responded by boycotting the paper and launching a rival daily.
- The Tacoma Wharfage War
A passenger steamship line faces a bitter blockade after refusing to inflate prices to protect Northern Pacific rail interests.
- The Interior Secretary Came to See Whether the Puyallups Could Manage Their Own Land. He Left Surprised.
John W. Noble toured the Puyallup reservation's farms ahead of opening it to sale — and found the people he had been told could not handle their affairs running them well.
- Caught in the Dynamo: A Tacoma Worker Squeezed to Death at His Post
Edward H. Curran was at his station in the Tacoma Light and Water Company's electric plant when the machinery pulled him through a gap far too small for a man, breaking nearly every bone in his body.
- A Tinker's Alibi: How Tumwater Witnesses Overturned a Tacoma Murder Conviction
George Stowe was serving twenty years for shooting Enoch Crosby on a Tacoma street. Then residents of Tumwater swore they had watched him mend tinware miles away on the day of the murder.
- A Sawmill Owner's Terrible Day: The Buzz Saw That Took a Leg and Nearly Two
James P. Allison was cutting logs at Clear Lake when a cant hook threw him into the teeth of an immense saw. Doctors were summoned from Olympia, Centralia and Bucoda, but the injured man waited hours for relief.
- The Last Chapter at 1344 C Street
After her abusive husband hanged himself in the Tacoma city jail, a Swedish-born woman shot herself—and the policeman who had tried to save her stayed at her bedside until the end.
- Tacoma's Labor Boycott: Business Men Forced to Meet in a Basement as Tensions Escalate
A planned meeting of business men to address the Trades Council's boycott of the Ledger newspaper is postponed after the Commercial Club refuses its rooms. Undeterred, a group meets in a basement, but the Trades Council dismisses it as meaningless. The city remains on edge as labor and business collide.
- A Murderer Pries His Way Out of the Steilacoom Asylum
Gianini, convicted of killing a Jewish peddler in Eastern Washington, removed a bar from his cell window and vanished; scouts were sent out in every direction.
- A Brutal Murder on the Trail to Fort Steilacoom
A soldier is found dead after a violent altercation involving multiple men, leaving the community in shock.
- Shot by a Rejected Lover, Mabel Thorp Is Mending at St. Joseph's
Two days after Ernest Grant shot her and then drank acid to kill himself, the young Tacoma woman is healing fast — the bullet wound, the paper reports, is nearly closed, but the shock is another matter.
- One Punch in a Tacoma Saloon, and Three Days Later a Man Was Dead
A Seattle commercial traveler needled a dog, then a bartender. He walked the streets with a fractured skull for three days before he finally asked for a hospital — and his last coherent claim was that he'd been sandbagged.
- Seven Inches in Ten Days: The Flood That Broke Puget Sound
A warm Chinook melted mountain snow into relentless rain, washing out the Northern Pacific, wrecking the Naphtha launch works, and isolating towns from Tacoma to Seattle.