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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 7 |
| 1858 | 4 |
| 1859 | 6 |
| 1860 | 6 |
| 1861 | 11 |
| 1862 | 6 |
| 1863 | 4 |
| 1864 | 1 |
| 1865 | 2 |
| 1871 | 2 |
| 1872 | 17 |
| 1876 | 153 |
| 1877 | 135 |
| 1878 | 70 |
| 1879 | 9 |
| 1880 | 24 |
| 1882 | 33 |
| 1883 | 186 |
| 1884 | 99 |
| 1885 | 110 |
| 1886 | 59 |
| 1887 | 63 |
| 1888 | 93 |
| 1889 | 319 |
| 1890 | 55 |
| 1891 | 199 |
| 1892 | 361 |
| 1893 | 330 |
| 1894 | 241 |
| 1895 | 340 |
| 1897 | 7 |
| 1898 | 27 |
| 1899 | 54 |
| 1900 | 6 |
| 1902 | 9 |
| 1903 | 148 |
| 1904 | 122 |
| 1905 | 23 |
| 1907 | 7 |
| 1908 | 79 |
| 1909 | 224 |
| 1910 | 50 |
| 1911 | 11 |
| 1912 | 7 |
| 1914 | 23 |
| 1915 | 40 |
| 1916 | 67 |
| 1917 | 50 |
| 1918 | 2 |
| 1923 | 24 |
| 1924 | 18 |
| 1925 | 7 |
| 1928 | 2 |
| 1929 | 2 |
386 stories matching build
- The Courthouse That Never Was
A desperate plea to build a modest county seat on a 'high ridge' between Seattle and Belltown before the city outgrows its footprint.
- The Night the 'Mad House' Burned Down
A suspicious blaze destroys a landmark building in Seattle, forcing local citizens to scramble to save the nearby gas works from the encroaching flames.
- The High Price of Speculation
Real estate owners in 1872 Olympia are holding vacant lots hostage, refusing to sell or lease, effectively strangling the city's economic growth.
- The Mayor’s Sidewalk Mandate: Seattle’s First War on Public Infrastructure
In August 1872, Mayor J.T. Jordan issued Ordinance No. 32, forcing property owners on Capitol Hill to build their own sidewalks or face fines—a stark early example of the city shifting infrastructure costs onto private citizens.
- The Great Moss Panic of 1878
Seattle's early city council once declared war on rooftop greenery to prevent the city from burning down.
- The Seattle Fire That Almost Burned the Town
An incendiary blaze at the old Coffee and Elbow Saloon nearly consumed downtown Seattle in a narrow escape that left hundreds of men standing by with buckets.
- The Classroom Crunch of 1877
Before Seattle grew into an educational hub, the city struggled to find enough space for its students, forcing a desperate lease of university buildings.
- The Great Seattle Construction Boom of 1878
Falling material costs spark a building frenzy in the frontier town, signaling a rapid expansion for early property owners.
- The Price of Education: Seattle Schools in Crisis
When the School Board looked to rent space from the University of Washington to ease overcrowding, they were met with a rental demand that signaled the end of public space as a bargain.
- The Boom Town Hustle
In 1876, a frantic race to build and occupy new structures captures the rapid, speculative growth of Snohomish.
- The Struggle for School Space
A call to stop patching the Snohomish public school and instead plan for the city's inevitable future growth.
- The Great Olympia Fire: How a City Rallied Against the Flames
When an August blaze threatened to consume Olympia's business district, the community, including local women, rushed to save the heart of the town.
- The Boom Town That Never Quite Was
A speculative real estate advertisement touts Mukilteo as the next great industrial powerhouse, promising a future of ship-building and commerce that would forever alter the Snohomish County shoreline.
- The Shack They Called a Courthouse
A visiting traveler shames Seattle's leadership for holding federal court in a dilapidated building while tax dollars bled away.
- The 1878 Dream of Building Societies
A look at the early mutual loan movement, promising that the average working man could escape the cycle of high rent and finally own his home.
- The Grand Hotel That Will Define a Territory
A new five-story hotel rising on Main Street promises to transform Snohomish from a frontier town into the 'best city' of Washington Territory.
- The 'Street Arabs' Terrorizing Pioneer Seattle
A wave of juvenile vandalism strikes Front Street, leaving local merchants and the South School House in ruins.
- Building a Future: The 1876 Fight for Seattle’s School Sites
As Seattle’s population swelled in the 1870s, city leaders scrambled to secure prime real estate for education amidst a booming, land-hungry frontier town.
- The Struggle for a Fire-Proof Seattle
In 1876, a local editor warns that Seattle’s reliance on wood-frame architecture is a dangerous gamble for a growing city.
- The Shipyard of the World
In 1876, a local editorial argued that Puget Sound’s immense timber wealth and strategic harbor position would inevitably make it the global hub for shipbuilding, urging Seattle business owners to subsidize the relocation of Eastern industry.
- The Engineering Fever of 1876
As bridge-building projects skyrocket across the nation, Seattle looks toward the ambitious, iron-willed future of American infrastructure.
- Seattle’s First Great Infrastructure Boom
An 1877 report captures a young Seattle at a crossroads, boasting of massive rail investments and its first-ever public spending on city grading, setting a precedent for a city that never stops building.
- Seattle’s Tinderbox: A Warning from the Ashes of Reno
As a massive fire ravages Nevada, this Seattle editor sounds the alarm over the city’s wooden buildings and exorbitant insurance costs, urging brick construction before disaster strikes.
- British Co-operative Building and the Goal of Homeownership
Before the age of the modern mortgage, Seattle’s early pioneers looked toward international cooperative building societies to help working citizens plant roots in the city.
- The Death of the American Shipyard
In an 1873 speech, Congressman Alexander Mitchell argued that excessive taxation and protectionist tariffs were systematically destroying the American shipping industry, forcing once-prosperous shipbuilders into obsolescence.