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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1858 | 1 |
| 1859 | 2 |
| 1872 | 3 |
| 1876 | 27 |
| 1877 | 23 |
| 1878 | 11 |
| 1879 | 2 |
| 1880 | 5 |
| 1882 | 4 |
| 1883 | 19 |
| 1884 | 14 |
| 1885 | 15 |
| 1886 | 6 |
| 1887 | 6 |
| 1888 | 12 |
| 1889 | 32 |
| 1890 | 3 |
| 1891 | 23 |
| 1892 | 18 |
| 1893 | 19 |
| 1894 | 7 |
| 1895 | 27 |
| 1897 | 2 |
| 1898 | 3 |
| 1899 | 7 |
| 1900 | 1 |
| 1902 | 1 |
| 1903 | 11 |
| 1904 | 4 |
| 1905 | 1 |
| 1907 | 1 |
| 1908 | 3 |
| 1909 | 10 |
| 1910 | 6 |
| 1911 | 4 |
| 1914 | 2 |
| 1916 | 3 |
| 1923 | 3 |
| 1929 | 1 |
66 stories matching wealth
- The Struggle for Dignity in the Logging Camps
A historic appeal from 1880s Snohomish invites laborers to seek fair wages and better conditions amidst the grueling demands of the frontier timber industry.
- The Social Duty of Wealth in 1878 Seattle
A local editor challenges a wealthy property owner who claimed he owed nothing to the community that built his fortune.
- The Dead Banker’s Wealth: A Tale of Fish and Ruin
In the December 3, 1876 edition of Seattle's only daily newspaper, publisher Thos. B. Merry announces a new Sunday feature exploring the tragic fall of local banker Ralston, whose fortune was lost to the depths of Puget Sound.
- The Curse of the Golden Calf: Seattle’s Economic Anxiety in 1877
As banks tightened their grip on local capital, a Seattle editor warned that hoarding wealth—rather than investing in local industry and homes—was a dangerous path to ruin.
- The Price of Growth: How Seattle’s Economy Faced the Boom and Bust of 1877
A look back at the financial anxieties and rapid development of 1877 Seattle, as the young city navigated the transition from frontier town to an emerging regional market.
- The Mill Barons Who Took the Wealth and Left the Ruins
A scathing editorial in the 1877 Snohomish Sun condemns Washington Territory’s timber magnates for draining local resources while contributing nothing to schools, roads, or community development.
- The Workingman's Protest Against Seattle's 'Class Tax'
An early Seattle citizen takes to the press to challenge a municipal licensing ordinance, arguing it unfairly shifts the tax burden from the wealthy onto the backs of laborers.
- The Hidden Gold of the Swamps
While pioneers once clung to the sandy prairies, Seattle's growing interest in 'tule lands'—the rich, reclaimed marshes of the Sound—reveals a new frontier for agricultural wealth.
- The Timber Tax Trap: How Snohomish County’s Wealth Was Slipping Away
A local writer warns that mill companies are exploiting a flawed $2.50-per-acre tax assessment to monopolize land, leaving the county with debt and no court house while small loggers go bust.
- The Millionaire’s Dilemma: A 1877 Critique on Wealth and Labor
An editorial from the Snohomish era takes on the 'purse-proud millionaires' of the Gilded Age, arguing that the true threat to the nation is the unchecked power of corporations and concentrated wealth.
- The Hidden Fortune of the Seattle 'Miser'
A young man arrives in the Territory with a half-million-dollar inheritance, yet lives in total poverty—until a secret letter reveals his true, noble motive.
- The Unchecked Ambitions of 1878 Seattle
A prophetic editorial from the Intelligencer reveals how early leaders envisioned Seattle as the industrial and commercial juggernaut of the Pacific Northwest.
- The Rambling Village That Wanted to Be a City
An 1876 editorial reflects on Seattle’s humble, sprawling aesthetic, arguing that the lack of architectural grandeur was not a failure of taste, but a deliberate, democratic strategy to avoid the 'unhealthy' wealth concentration of Eastern cities.
- The Artist and the Terrier: A Seattle Romance
A down-and-out clerk uses his only asset—a well-trained terrier—to win the favor of a grumpy painter and the hand of his beloved in 1870s Seattle.
- The Dream of a Seattle Rail Empire
An 1876 editorial envisions a booming Seattle as the Pacific terminus for a global transit hub, connecting the rails of the East to the wealth of the West.
- The Labor Vulture: A Radical Manifesto in a Seattle Pawn Shop
An anonymous editorial titled 'Capital vs. Lamb' appeared in the Seattle press in 1876, arguing that laborers are currently enslaved by capitalists and must unite to seize all profits of their work.
- The Tide Marsh Farmer's Million-Dollar Pitch
A La Conner entrepreneur calls for local investment to stop the exodus of grain wealth, offering land to any miller willing to set up shop.
- 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.
- The Swamp That Was: How a Drainage Project Threatened to Reclaim King County’s Wetlands
In 1876, local farmers petitioned the county to drain the marshes between White and Black rivers, arguing that reclamation would boost public health and add millions to the region's wealth.
- The Intellectual Meritocracy of the East
In an era of intense anti-Chinese sentiment in the West, a Snohomish lecturer finds a startling, counter-intuitive argument for the superiority of Chinese governance: a rigorous, education-based civil service.
- The Promised City on the Sound
Promoters in 1879 painted a utopian vision of New Tacoma, promising a perfectly planned metropolis designed for wealth and grandeur at the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad.
- The Push for a Western Migration
In 1877, Seattle boosters and railroad agents mapped out a deliberate campaign to transform the Puget Sound basin from a 'remote' wilderness into a thriving, industrial metropolis.
- The Black Pall Over Washington’s Future
A proposed decade-long extension for the Northern Pacific Railroad threatens to monopolize the territory's vast timber and mineral wealth while stifling independent settlement.
- The Railroad That Stole Our Land: How Seattle’s Interests Blocked Snohomish’s Future
A furious letter to the editor exposes how political maneuvering in Washington D.C. and Seattle kept vital federal lands locked up, denying homesteaders their rightful homes while railroad tycoons played games with territory.
- The Frontier Prospect: Surveying the Skagit River's Hidden Wealth
An 1872 exploration report charts the potential for settlement, steam navigation, and resource extraction along the Skagit River, framing the 'great jam' of timber as a challenge to be conquered by modern commerce.