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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 1 |
| 1858 | 3 |
| 1859 | 1 |
| 1860 | 1 |
| 1861 | 1 |
| 1864 | 1 |
| 1871 | 1 |
| 1872 | 1 |
| 1876 | 30 |
| 1877 | 15 |
| 1878 | 8 |
| 1879 | 1 |
| 1880 | 2 |
| 1882 | 2 |
| 1883 | 11 |
| 1884 | 3 |
| 1885 | 11 |
| 1886 | 4 |
| 1887 | 3 |
| 1888 | 11 |
| 1889 | 15 |
| 1890 | 1 |
| 1891 | 10 |
| 1892 | 21 |
| 1893 | 13 |
| 1894 | 13 |
| 1895 | 20 |
| 1898 | 1 |
| 1899 | 3 |
| 1900 | 2 |
| 1903 | 3 |
| 1904 | 5 |
| 1905 | 1 |
| 1908 | 2 |
| 1909 | 4 |
| 1911 | 2 |
| 1915 | 3 |
| 1916 | 1 |
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| 1928 | 1 |
62 stories matching dwell
- The Great Seattle Main Street Flood of 1886
Heavy rains turn a bustling thoroughfare into a literal river, driving residents from their homes and stalling city business.
- The Queen City’s Fire: A Home Ashes and a Stovepipe’s Fault
In the early days of Washington Territory, a heated stovepipe turned a family’s home into kindling, leaving them with heavy losses but no blame but their own.
- The Forgotten Family on the Garret Floor
An impoverished immigrant family, suffering from diphtheria in a cramped Seattle attic, highlights the desperate housing conditions facing newcomers in 1889.
- The Art of Raising Houses
Seattle property owners take pride in extreme, gravity-defying architecture as they elevate buildings to create room for new business ventures.
- The Great Fire That Turned Seattle’s Suburb into Ash
A fast-moving blaze in the early morning hours consumed nearly all of South Seattle's business district, leaving dozens of families destitute and causing over $100,000 in damage.
- The Great Burn of 1885: A Summer of Ash and Loss
While Seattle sweltered, the timberlands north of the city were consumed by an unprecedented wildfire season, leaving behind a trail of homelessness, tragedy, and destruction.
- The Landlords' New Playbook: How Seattle's Elite Are Cornering the Housing Market
In a move that mirrors today’s corporate housing boom, lumber barons Yesler, Foster, and Lowman are launching a massive development on Broadway to control supply and dictate prices for new arrivals.
- Seattle’s Sudden Housing Crunch
An influx of new arrivals has left residents sleeping on hotel floors and cramming into single houses.
- The Fire at the Granger Cottage
A modest $1,000 home is reduced to ash in a Sunday afternoon blaze, marking yet another loss in a series of local misfortunes.
- The Loss of a Landmark: Cyrus Walker’s Port Gamble Home
A catastrophic early-morning blaze consumes one of the finest residences in Port Gamble, resulting in a loss valued at over five thousand dollars.
- The True Cost of Building a Home in 1889 Seattle
While real estate developers and contractors debated the rising cost of labor and imported building supplies, one carpenter showed that a home could be built for a mere $150.
- The Great Seattle Boom: $2 Million in Brick and Mortar
Architects and owners promise a wave of substantial construction that will transform Second Street into the city's new business heart, leaving Front Street behind.
- The Land Grab at Smith's Corner: How Lewis & Gilman Are Selling Seattle's Future
While the rest of the city debates prices and politics, a powerful duo is quietly converting the terminus of the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway into a goldmine, with lots selling out in days.
- The Day Seaton Went Up in Smoke
A devastating fire tore through a Washington sawmill town, proving how quickly the industrial heart of the frontier could vanish.
- Tragedy at the Falls
A young woman is found dead near the Spokane River following a flash flood.
- Tension and Violence at the Colville Reservation
Settlers at Colville petition for military intervention following reports of burned hay fields and armed conflict with local Indigenous people.
- Tragedy in the Woods: Storm Claims Lives at Crescent Bay
A young family seeking shelter from a gale-force windstorm in the woods meets a sudden, heartbreaking end when a falling tree strikes their home.
- The Seattle Housing Crunch of 1882
When an influx of new residents left travelers sleeping in the streets, local leaders looked to the 'building association' model to solve the shortage.
- A Violent Collision in Front of the New Opera House
A frightened team of horses pulling a vegetable wagon caused a severe accident, leaving a valuable Percheron horse seriously wounded.
- The Struggle to Count Seattle
Boosterism and bureaucracy collide as city leaders argue that the recent census failed to capture Seattle’s true, booming population.
- The Ashes of Affluence: How Seattle’s Burnt District Became a Goldmine
While the city mourns the destruction of its commercial heart, savvy investors are turning charred lots into fortunes, with property values tripling in just years.
- The Unfilial Gift: A Father's Regret
An elderly farmer, swayed by sentiment, signs over his land to his daughter and son-in-law, only to be cast into the kitchen and ignored.
- The Clearing of the Ten Acres
A dense forest in the pioneer village of Seattle was cleared by hand in 1861 to build a university, marking the humble birth of an institution that would grow with the frontier territory.
- The Smell of Death: Seattle’s First Fight Over Industrial Zoning
In May 1890, a tannery near Seneca and Front streets was driving neighbors to the brink of eviction with its noxious fumes. One resident took to the press to demand the city council act before property values collapsed.
- The Struggle for Osceola's Road
A letter from an early settler argues that connecting the remote Osceola precinct to Seattle is vital to the county's economic future.