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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 |
1,115 stories
- The Battle Over the Public Purse
A legal challenge threatens county infrastructure funding, exposing a rift over how the town calculates its own wealth and debt.
- The Necessity of Mercy: Aberdeen's First Hospital
Founded by the Dominican Sisters, the new St. Joseph's Hospital arrived just in time to treat the frequent, brutal injuries sustained by loggers and mill workers in the surrounding timber country.
- A Hospital Built for Industry’s Toll
How the Dominican Sisters established a critical medical lifeline for Aberdeen’s dangerous logging and mill works.
- The Fight for the Agricultural College
Colfax officials accuse the state government of fraud and collusion in the selection of the site for the new Agricultural College.
- Olympia Mourns a Lincoln-Appointed Chief Justice
Judge O. C. Hewitt, who presided over Washington Territory’s courts for eight years, was remembered as an honest jurist and beloved pioneer.
- The Taxpayer Who Couldn’t Sue the State
Washington’s Supreme Court dismisses the Agricultural College case, ruling that a private resident cannot halt state spending in equity—only the attorney general can.
- No Appropriation, No Warrants: Washington's 1891 Budget Standoff
The state treasurer refuses to honor university and militia warrants the legislature never funded, the Supreme Court backs him up, and Governor Ferry — in poor health — lets the idea of an extra session die.
- The State Is Broke: Why Olympia Needs an Emergency Legislature
A supreme court ruling on university lands has left Washington's brand-new state government without money to pay its own debts — and the Olympia Tribune argues the legislature must be hauled back to the capital before the state's credit collapses.
- The Governor's Cabinet Meets as Washington's Bills Go Unpaid
With public servants holding $103,000 in IOUs, Olympia officials debate whether to call the legislature back for an emergency session.
- The Eastern Oregon After the Fire
A board of survey finds the burned steamer's machinery ruined and its safe intact, while the crew buries the ship's cook.
- Twelve Puget Sound Steamships Ground to a Halt as Engineers and Pilots Dig In
A bare-knuckle jurisdictional feud between the Marine Engineers' Association and the Brotherhood of Pilots leaves the Sound's biggest passenger boats idle and 300 men out of work.
- The Letter That Asked: Is Olympia's Street-Tax Ordinance Even Legal?
A citizen signing himself 'Marius' argues that the city's method of charging property owners for street paving and grading violates due process — and warns that if the assessments collapse in court, every taxpayer in town will pay for it.
- A Defaulting Treasurer’s Debt Finally Comes Due—for a Governor and His Bondsmen
A Seattle judge orders E. P. Ferry and other sureties to pay King County $29,143.60 plus years of interest for George D. Hill’s vanished public funds.
- A Lincoln Judge Buried: Olympia Mourns C. C. Hewitt
The bar and superior court adjourn as pioneers honor the ex-chief justice of Washington Territory, remembered as a plain, honest man who served from the bench through stormy years.
- Jim Hill Finally Names Everett as the Sound Terminus
A contract to build the Great Northern from Everett to Stevens Pass promises 3,000 jobs and a transcontinental line — if the tunnel and the promises hold.
- The Governor's Telegram: How the Militia Was Called Out to the King County Coal Fields
Colonel J. C. Haines lays out the paper trail behind the 1891 deployment of National Guard troops to the coal towns of Gilman and Franklin — and the labor war that nearly became a dawn battle.
- Yakima's Artesian Boom: Turning Desert Into Hop Fields
Attorney Fred Parker told a Tacoma reporter that artesian wells and the big irrigation ditches would reclaim 30,000 acres of desert and draw Sound-country hop growers to Yakima County.
- The State Must Pay the Men It Called to Put Down the King County Riots
The Washington Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Gov. Ferry's National Guard troops were in state service during the King County riots—and that the state, not the soldiers, must bear the cost.
- The Great Seattle School Expansion of 1890
Facing a tidal wave of new students, Seattle’s rapid development forced the school board to rent dozens of extra classrooms and issue massive bonds just to keep pace.
- The Manufactured Boom of Medina
A speculative land development near Lake McMurray, Skagit County, uses a new railroad and promised natural resources to lure investors to a 'crescent' townsite.
- The Boom Under the Cascades: Washington's Coal Explosion
As Seattle’s economy surged in 1890, the coal industry hit a record-breaking output, fueling the region’s expansion and signaling the arrival of major Eastern capital.
- Seattle Bakers Threaten New Year’s Strike
Local union demands an end to grueling night shifts, as bakery owners signal a refusal to yield.
- The Wandering Minstrel of Puget Sound
A profile of an itinerant street performer and songwriter, known as 'Fiddler Williams,' who became a familiar, if beleaguered, fixture of late 19th-century Washington city life.
- The Electric Line to the Lake: Seattle's Suburban Dream
A newly opened electric rail line promises to turn the shores of Lake Washington into a suburban paradise, sparking a scramble for prime real estate.
- A Frontier Education: The Struggles of Washington's Early Schools
State Superintendent R.B. Bryan reflects on the chaotic, underfunded, and record-sparse beginnings of Washington’s school system.