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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 62 |
| 1858 | 29 |
| 1859 | 52 |
| 1860 | 27 |
| 1861 | 101 |
| 1862 | 87 |
| 1863 | 69 |
| 1864 | 32 |
| 1865 | 11 |
| 1871 | 11 |
| 1872 | 140 |
| 1876 | 812 |
| 1877 | 678 |
| 1878 | 526 |
| 1879 | 64 |
| 1880 | 180 |
| 1882 | 130 |
| 1883 | 911 |
| 1884 | 499 |
| 1885 | 838 |
| 1886 | 492 |
| 1887 | 484 |
| 1888 | 440 |
| 1889 | 1,324 |
| 1890 | 287 |
| 1891 | 1,115 |
| 1892 | 2,855 |
| 1893 | 2,829 |
| 1894 | 2,116 |
| 1895 | 1,830 |
| 1896 | 2 |
| 1897 | 62 |
| 1898 | 196 |
| 1899 | 446 |
| 1900 | 114 |
| 1902 | 34 |
| 1903 | 1,332 |
| 1904 | 1,126 |
| 1905 | 124 |
| 1907 | 53 |
| 1908 | 351 |
| 1909 | 1,545 |
| 1910 | 413 |
| 1911 | 160 |
| 1912 | 73 |
| 1914 | 261 |
| 1915 | 300 |
| 1916 | 545 |
| 1917 | 332 |
| 1918 | 45 |
| 1919 | 5 |
| 1920 | 1 |
| 1922 | 18 |
| 1923 | 185 |
| 1924 | 151 |
| 1925 | 64 |
| 1928 | 14 |
| 1929 | 19 |
2,231 stories
- 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.
- Inside the New King County Jail
A detailed look at the 'infallible' brick and iron lockup built to replace older, makeshift holding cells in 1870s Seattle.
- The Farmers’ Fight to Clear the Skagit River
When the government refused to fund the removal of dangerous log jams, local settlers and merchants took the job into their own hands, relying on community donations rather than official aid.
- The Perilous Mudholes of Early Seattle
A wagon spill involving a local judge exposes the treacherous, unpaved state of Seattle’s streets in 1876.
- The Death-Trap at Front and Seneca
A dangerous, makeshift bridge over a Seattle construction site is leaving pedestrians scrambling for their lives as the city struggles with incomplete grading.
- The Front Street Bottleneck
A classic tale of early Seattle infrastructure, where a proposed bridge at Seneca Street was deemed 'a fifth wheel to a wagon' by a fed-up local editor.
- The Boom Town on the Sound: Labor and Industry in 1877 Tacoma
A traveler’s dispatch from New Tacoma reports on the frenetic pace of local timber mills, the arrival of new industrial machinery, and the rapid expansion of the labor force as the city builds its future.
- The Street Brawl Over a Chinese Opium Den
A morning disturbance on Washington Street reveals the city's hidden world of opium dens and the swift, often brutal, efforts to police them.
- The Hidden Destroyer of Seattle’s Waterfront
In 1877, Seattle property owners faced a silent maritime menace: a wood-boring mollusk called the 'Teredo' that could collapse a wharf from the inside out.
- The Forgotten Potential of Seattle's Poor Farm
A visit to the county-owned farm on the Duwamish reveals a rich historical site where city officials debated the ethics of poverty and public support in 1877.
- The Struggle for the Snoqualmie Pass Trail
As Seattle grew, settlers in the Kittitas Valley argued that their future prosperity—and the survival of their farms—depended entirely on carving a road through the Cascade Mountains.
- The Panther and the Mountain Cave
A pioneer’s harrowing brush with death during a massive Washington landslide leads to an unlikely alliance with a wild beast.
- The 1877 Argument to Run Seattle Like a Corporation
A fiery editorial from the Daily Intelligence argues that municipal voting should be tied to property ownership, mirroring the management of railroads and banks.
- Seattle's Muddy Streets Stall Railroad Equipment in 1877
A local editor chronicles the impossible state of the city's thoroughfares, where wagon axles disappear into the muck.