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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 |
1,830 stories
- A Burglar's Calling Card: Saloon Robbed, With a Polite Note Left on the Bar
Thieves pry open the iron shutters of John J. Madigan's Bodega saloon on Front Street, empty his secret cash stash and leave behind three empty glasses and an apology — of sorts.
- The Schoolteacher, the Prison Term, and the Divorce
A Seattle judge frees Irene B. Mead from her imprisoned husband and awards her custody of six children.
- A Coal Mine Burns Beneath Black Diamond
Mine No. 12 is sealed and pumped full of steam after an underground fire. Superintendent Morgans gives it two weeks to prove it can ever be worked again.
- A Messenger Boy, a Pawned Watch, and Badge No. 21
Detective Philbrick traced a stolen gold watch through Seattle pawnshops to a 17-year-old messenger who confessed to taking it while a woman slept.
- The Stove Thief, the Opium Smoker, and the Crooked Colony
A red-haired plumber's slip of the tongue and a morphine-addicted burglar's hidden shack give Seattle police a busy day in court.
- A Dollar a Day: Bricklayers Force Olympia Contractors to Pay Up
A week-long walkout over wages ends with contractors conceding $4 a day—but the capitol job is already behind schedule.
- The Capitol Job: Seattle’s Union Trades Beat a $3 Wage
A bricklayers’ letter recounts how union men, backed by stonecutters, forced contractors at the Washington State Capitol to hire union labor at $4 for an eight-hour day.
- The Captain's Last Step on a Dark Anacortes Wharf
A wrongful-death suit against the Oregon Improvement Company turns on an unlit slip, a fatal fall, and whether the wharf was dangerously built.
- The Infidel of the Hoh River
A settler known as Edward Cameron summoned a friend to dinner, said he had taken poison, and left a note refusing religious burial.
- A Counterfeit Paper Trail Runs Through Seattle
Seattle customs officials insist no forged Chinese registration certificates have surfaced here, while the stories of two men tied to a San Francisco counterfeiting ring spill into Tacoma and Port Townsend.
- The Horse Thief the Jail Kept Letting Go
Released from the county jail days earlier, Frank Klinefelter walked into a South Commercial Street stable, rode off on a market driver's bald-faced roan — and no one intends to prosecute.
- The Opium Cipher That Cost a Customs Inspector His Job
Port Townsend's S. G. Glen Todd denies he was fired for sleeping on duty—or for ignoring opium and Chinese smuggling—and produces a cipher telegram to prove he reported both.
- Seattle's Potato-Patch Plan for the Unemployed
Seattle's charity board proposes turning vacant city land into potato patches for jobless men, borrowing a Detroit relief experiment that fed nearly a thousand families.
- Ballard's Saloon War: A Dry Sunday and a Hornet's Nest
A petition to shutter Ballard's saloons on the Sabbath, an ordinance to strip them of blinds and screens, and defiant barkeeps threatening to resist — the young city's first big temperance fight comes to a head in the council rooms.
- One Man, Five Badges, One Dollar a Month
Seattle's house of delegates votes to fold the plumbing inspector, sanitary officer, fire marshal, oil inspector and market inspector into a single job — then argues for two hours about whether the city is saving money or just hiding the work.
- The Cowboy Who Cashed His Own Checks
A visiting cowboy passed about $100 in forged Frye-Bruhn checks across Seattle saloons, then caught the steamer Kingston before the warrant could catch him.
- The Vice President's Cousin and the $1,000 Port Townsend Swindle
A smooth-tongued 'loan agent' traded on Adlai Stevenson's name to collect membership fees from Port Townsend's most respectable Democrats — then hid behind unreturned abstracts and 'free stock' worth $100 a share.
- When Seattle Tried to Farm Its Way Out of Hard Times
An 1895 committee offered plots, tools and seed to out-of-work families near Lake Union, insisting the plan was a hand up rather than charity.
- The Anti-Catholic Crusade Comes to Rake's Hall
A Seattle crowd packed a nativist A.P.A. rally to hear a Baptist pastor demand that immigrants prove their patriotism—or take the first train home.
- The Jailhouse Brawl of Sam Quinn, the Man Married Eighteen Times
A South Park character with a legendary temper and a reputed eighteen marriages ends up bloodied in the King County jail after a mysterious fight with a fellow prisoner.
- At Green Lake, Nobody Had a Reputation Quite Like Rev. Parker's
A Seattle estate hearing turned into a neighbors' referendum on a minister's honesty, with testimony that he was called a liar, a hypocrite and worse.
- The Pike Street Rescue of Three 'Giddy' Girls
A 16-year-old from Victoria and two Seattle girls were pulled from saloon back rooms and lodging houses; one father got his daughter back.
- Seattle's Pingree Plan: Free Garden Plots for the Unemployed
A city-backed scheme opens an office at 14 Railroad Avenue to hand out land so jobless families can grow their own food — provided the subscriptions come in fast enough.
- The Ghost of the Seattle Enterprise: Stockholders Escape a Dead Newspaper's Debts
A receiver's long-running suit against 85 subscribers to the failed Seattle Enterprise collapses in court, but not before the paper's brief, fiery life is recalled — complete with a building-bulging press and a strike by its own printers.
- Two Towns Emptied Overnight as Gold Fever Hits the Methow
Ruby and Conconully stand nearly deserted while a brand-new townsite at the mouth of the Methow fills faster than carpenters can raise walls.