Research the archive
Narrow 27,002 newspaper stories by words, years, place, newspaper and subject. See when and where they ran, then download what you find.
Put a phrase in quotes ("rent strike") or leave a word out with a minus (strike -baseball). Old scans misspell names, so when little is found, near-spellings are offered.
Refine1 on
Show the numbers
| 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 |
484 stories
- The Unhoused Emigrants of Lake Union
A charitable society in 1887 Seattle discovers a family living in a 'miserable shanty' and works to find them housing and employment.
- The Waterfront Cold War: Seattle’s Battle Over the Tideflats
As railroad companies choked off the tideflats with unpermitted pilings, local manufacturers fought to keep their water access open in a clash between industrial expansion and small business survival.
- The Blue Ribbon Reunion at the Union Depot
A young man waits nightly at the Seattle train station, searching for a stranger marked by a blue ribbon on her wrist.
- The Great Maple Valley Bear Panic
When a black bear wandered into their backyard, a frontier couple abandoned their home and fled on horseback to escape the 'ferocious' beast.
- The Great White River Bridge Feud
A fiery letter from a resident exposes the political squabbling and local power struggles behind a seemingly mundane infrastructure project in King County.
- Blood on the Waterfront: A Bloody July 4th in LaConner
A quiet holiday celebration in the Skagit County mill town turned violent when a local businessman was stabbed in a saloon dispute.
- The Great Fourth of July Camp-Out Fiasco
When Seattle’s local militia attempted to prep for a military parade, their poor planning and lack of supplies resulted in a humiliating, mud-soaked retreat.
- The Mammoth Bones of the Spokane Prairie
An unusual discovery in Eastern Washington yields prehistoric treasures buried in a shallow strip of prairie.
- Firefighters, assemble! A Puyallup Valley inferno threatens the bridge
Citizens and volunteers rush to save a critical bridge in the Puyallup valley as wildfires ravage timberlands.
- A Community's Last Act for a Murdered Man
When immigrant Julius Scherbring was killed for his meager savings, his German countrymen stepped in to ensure he received a proper burial rather than a pauper’s grave.
- The Bid to Bring the Rails to Olympia
When the Puget Sound and Gray's Harbor Railroad Company looked to move its terminal away from the shallow waters of Little Skookum Bay, a committee of Olympia’s finest set out to land the contract.
- The Unintended Consequence of Sunday Closing
When Seattle’s city officials tried to enforce strict Sunday liquor laws, the city's saloons found a loophole that turned a day of temperance into a day of public defiance.
- The Unpaved Dispute: A Seattle Street Fight
When the City Council attempted to force through street improvements against the wishes of local property owners, the resulting legal struggle highlighted the friction between civic development and individual land rights in 1887.
- Battling the Cascades: A Railroad Contractor’s Winter Ordeal
Before high-tech de-icing, railroad crews in the Cascade Mountains spent months shoveling snow by hand just to keep the tracks from vanishing into the mud.
- The Dark of Night Smuggling Ring in Puget Sound
A steamship captain fingers a local agent in a brazen operation to sneak mysterious trunks onto a vessel under the cover of darkness.
- The Unlucky Stable in the Middle of the Street
A railroad land agent inadvertently builds a brand-new, modern stable smack in the middle of a planned Tacoma thoroughfare.
- Tragedy in the Timber: A Faller’s Fatal Error
A young logger’s life is cut short by a freak accident in the deep woods of the Pacific Northwest.
- The Great Timber Fires of 1887
As drought conditions persist, devastating fires tear through the logging camps and timberlands near Seattle.
- A Heated Clash at City Hall
A contractor and a former mayor trade sharp words before the Tacoma City Council over stalled infrastructure payments.
- The House on J Street: A Tenant’s Defiance
When Milton Spinning bought a house in Seattle for his own use, he didn't expect to find a stranger occupying it against his will.
- The Desperate Night in the Seattle Depot
A homeless couple is evicted from a rail station in the dead of night, only to be saved by the charity of local women.
- The Wheat Harvest Duel of Whitman County
A boozy dispute over farm chores between two longtime neighbors ends in a shotgun confrontation that left one man injured and the other behind bars.
- The Lumber Boom of 1887
Seattle's bustling mills are running night and day to keep up with the frantic demand for timber, driving labor wages and export prices to new heights.
- The Struggle for a Seattle Shipyard
As railroad expansion swallows the waterfront, local mariners argue the city's future depends on building a floating dry dock to survive.
- The Unpredictable Fury of the White River
For decades, pioneers in the White River Valley have battled shifting channels and massive log jams that threaten to drown the farmland—and now, a desperate, explosive attempt to save the riverbank has left the community divided.