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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 Delegate Who Sold Seattle’s Future for Five Thousand Dollars
A scathing editorial in the Puget Sound Dispatch accuses Territorial Delegate George Freeman Willard of betraying Seattle’s interests—specifically the mud flats of Duwamish Bay—to secure his own political and financial gain, while simultaneously accepting bribes from rival railroad companies.
- The Siege at the St. Charles Hotel
A young woman recounts a harrowing night of confinement after a local man tricked her into his room, only to be met with a public denial and claims of 'blackmailing.'
- The Great Seattle Saw-Mill Lottery
A frontier town turns to state-sanctioned gambling as a desperate economic strategy to boost local development.
- The Great Seattle Saw-Mill Gamble
When the city's leading industry, the Yesler Mill, was placed into a grand lottery to boost the local economy and resolve debt, it sparked a frontier frenzy of ticket-buying.
- The Centennial That Saved Seattle: How 8,000 Souls Turned a Territorial Mist into a City
On July 4, 1876, despite being late to statehood and lacking federal funding, Seattle’s pioneers pulled off a spectacle of flags, steamers, and speeches that proved the town was here to stay.
- The Great Vote Fraud Scandal: How Federal Officials 'Colonized' Portland Voters to Steal Washington's Delegate Seat
In the wake of the 1876 presidential election, a local Democratic paper exposes a brazen scheme by Republican Governor Frederick Ferry and Collector of the Port William Scott to ferry voters from Vancouver, WA, across the river to Portland, OR, to swing the territorial delegate race in favor of Judge Jacobs.
- The Floor Gives Way: Panic and Death at Seattle’s Morris Opera House
A grand opening night turns into a nightmare when the second-story floor of the newly converted theater collapses into the stables below, killing several and injuring dozens in one of the city's earliest major disasters.
- Hanged on a Doubt: Washington Territory's First White Execution
When John Thompson was hanged in Seattle in 1877, many believed he was guilty of manslaughter, not murder. The Dispatch made the case that the law had taken a life it should have spared.
- Convicted in Five Days: The 1877 Murder Case That Shocked a Seattle Editor
After Solomon Baxter was killed, John Thompson went from arrest to a first-degree murder conviction in less than a week. The local paper called it a 'summary proceeding' with no parallel in American law.
- Unidentified Man Found Slain Near Seattle
A young immigrant worker is found brutally murdered in the woods, highlighting the dangers facing newcomers in the rugged economy of 1880s Washington.
- The Fight for Seattle’s Railroad Future
In 1878, Seattle’s civic leaders battled Northern Pacific rail monopolies to secure the city's future as the region's commercial engine.
- The Bankrupt Giant and the Tacoma Land Ring
A skeptical editor exposes the Northern Pacific Railroad's questionable finances and a suspicious telegraph campaign used to inflate land values in Tacoma.
- The Forgotten Hero: Major Granville Haller’s Fight Against Military Perjury
After decades of distinguished service in the Mexican-American and Indian Wars, a decorated officer was summarily stripped of his rank based on a peer’s 'dreamed' accusation of disloyalty.
- The Deadly Gift Sent to the Melodeon
A scorned woman in Seattle finds herself the target of a sophisticated homemade bomb disguised as a gift.
- The Harassment of Mrs. Robinson
A vulnerable woman in Seattle is subjected to a months-long campaign of targeted abuse, culminating in an arson attempt that nearly burned down a local hotel.
- The Great Seattle Railroad Swindle
How corporate speculators and land rings bypassed honest stockholders and plundered the future of the city's waterfront.
- The City That Almost Wasn't: How Seattle Lost Its Railroad Bet
When the Northern Pacific Railroad bypassed Seattle in favor of Tacoma, local investors faced a choice: watch their city wither or build their own line.
- The City’s Panic Over a Smallpox Outbreak
When an infectious disease arrived on the Seattle waterfront in 1876, the City Council and local editors turned to extreme rhetoric, calling for the forced removal of the city's vulnerable populations.
- The Waterfront Showdown of 1877
A mob attempts to forcibly eject Chinese laborers from a coal ship, but is repelled by a quick-thinking mate and his revolver.
- The Great Mountain Road Debate of 1877
As Seattle dreamed of a transcontinental railroad, settlers in the Kittitas Valley argued that a simple wagon road was the true key to their economic survival.
- The Judge Who Scratched Out His Own Eyes
A Seattle judge’s legal flip-flop on municipal taxation sparks a fiery editorial showdown and accusations of corrupt land speculation.
- An Indigenous Woman Left to Die at Seattle’s Mechanic Wharf
When five Indigenous people were rescued from a capsized canoe in Seattle’s harbor, a local resident threw one woman into the mud and left her to die.
- The Land Grab That Built Seattle: How Indian Reserves Held Back the City
In 1877, local editors railed against federal land policies that reserved vast tracts of fertile Washington Territory for Native American use, arguing these 'monopolies' stifled white settlement and speculation.
- The Checkerboard Trap: How the Northern Pacific Railroad Hoarded Washington’s Land
An editorial in The Daily Intelligencer exposes how the railroad company used federal land grants to block settlers from claiming homesteads, leaving thousands of acres in legal limbo and stalling the growth of Seattle and Tacoma.
- The Bank That Ate Seven Men: A Collapse in the Blue Point Claim
In a gruesome industrial accident on April 13, 1877, a bank of earth at the Blue Point mine in Smartsville buried seven miners alive and wounded six more, halting business for miles around.