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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1858 | 2 |
| 1859 | 3 |
| 1860 | 1 |
| 1861 | 8 |
| 1862 | 2 |
| 1863 | 1 |
| 1864 | 1 |
| 1872 | 10 |
| 1876 | 66 |
| 1877 | 60 |
| 1878 | 37 |
| 1879 | 4 |
| 1880 | 10 |
| 1882 | 6 |
| 1883 | 70 |
| 1884 | 35 |
| 1885 | 84 |
| 1886 | 48 |
| 1887 | 46 |
| 1888 | 45 |
| 1889 | 89 |
| 1890 | 14 |
| 1891 | 85 |
| 1892 | 184 |
| 1893 | 170 |
| 1894 | 211 |
| 1895 | 217 |
| 1896 | 1 |
| 1897 | 6 |
| 1898 | 12 |
| 1899 | 37 |
| 1900 | 4 |
| 1902 | 6 |
| 1903 | 101 |
| 1904 | 84 |
| 1905 | 5 |
| 1907 | 9 |
| 1908 | 29 |
| 1909 | 126 |
| 1910 | 60 |
| 1911 | 30 |
| 1912 | 20 |
| 1914 | 15 |
| 1915 | 16 |
| 1916 | 30 |
| 1917 | 10 |
| 1918 | 5 |
| 1922 | 1 |
| 1923 | 9 |
| 1924 | 7 |
| 1929 | 2 |
37 stories matching employ
- The Great Skilled Labor Shortage: Why Seattle’s Builders Are Paying $4 a Day
As construction booms in Magnolia and Bellevue, local employers are desperate for carpenters and masons, driving wages up to unprecedented levels.
- The Alaskan Gold Rush Labor Crisis
While Seattle’s docks overflow with men seeking their fortune in the north, local mills and employers struggle to find day laborers, leaving jobs unfilled and potential workers desperate.
- The 'Servant Girl' Stigma: A Century-Old Labor Crisis
An editorial from 1899 examines why American women shun domestic service in favor of office work, even when domestic positions offer higher stability.
- The Girls Who Walked Out: Seattle’s Hidden Labor War
While the city boasts of its booming manufacturing sector and 'local industry,' a quiet but significant portion of its workforce—women in garment factories—are fighting for survival wages, revealing the stark gender divide in Seattle's economic boom.
- The Great Seattle Hillside Regrade
While city engineers work to tame the steep streets with plows and rollers, the rapid expansion of Seattle's geography remains a constant, labor-intensive battle against the elements.
- The End of the Chain Gang in Seattle
City officials move to retire the practice of using prisoners for manual street labor, shifting to rock-breaking in a bid to deter professional tramps.
- Tragedy in the Timber: A Fatal Day Near Orting
A young laborer loses his life in a logging accident, underscoring the lethal risks inherent in Washington's turn-of-the-century lumber industry.
- The Eight-Day Juror Walkout
After eight days on a murder trial, a group of Tacoma jurors refused their meager $1-a-day pay, protesting the economic injustice of the state's compensation laws.
- The Blackmail Artist of Seattle
A man attempts to extort cash from his former employer by sending letters from behind bars, only to find himself trapped by the very schemes he designed.
- The Open Secret: Seattle's Booming Gambling District
While city authorities collected monthly fines, three major gambling houses operated in plain sight on the Seattle waterfront, catering to thousands of working men and sailors.
- The Day the Boardwalk Burned: Seattle’s Most Audacious Arson Attempt
On a quiet April afternoon in 1900, an arsonist tried to torch the home of Judge E. H. Scott on Yesler Way. A brave housekeeper fought back with a poker, saving her employer and thwarting the fire.
- The White City on Jefferson: How the Circus Became Seattle’s Newest Landlord
As Ringling Bros. prepares to erect a massive tent city in Pioneer Square, the show's manager reveals the logistical marvel—and the surprising economic impact—of bringing 100 performers and their menagerie to the Pacific Northwest.
- The Church Fair Scandal: When Seattle’s Clergy Played Prank on a Congregation
A reverend and his colleagues turned a charity fundraiser into an elaborate joke, dressing two women in 'shabbily' clothes to perform a 'Irish spectacle'—only for the punchline to backfire spectacularly.
- The Corruption of the City Council
Mayor John N. Nickols of Tacoma is arrested and indicted for soliciting a $10,000 bribe to approve ordinances ratifying city contracts.
- The City’s New Legal Nightmare: Lawsuits Filed Over the Pioneer Square Explosion
Attorneys Ronald and Rattle have been retained to represent relatives of the men killed in Tuesday’s boiler explosion, signaling a major battle for damages against Seattle.
- The Mill That Never Was: How Chicago Capitalists Tried to Buy Seattle’s Soul
In June 1899, Theo. Ludgate arrived in town promising 800 jobs and a massive milling enterprise. Instead, he sparked a legal battle over land leases and vanished back east, leaving behind only the ghost of an industrial boom.
- The Man Who Asked to Be Arrested: A Tacoma Town’s Battle for Its Soul
In a bizarre legal maneuver to force a court ruling on city limits, a resident of the newly excluded district deliberately broke water pipes and allowed himself to be taken into custody.
- The Ice King’s Plot: How a Monopoly Would Have Starved Seattle of Cold
A Chicago-based trust is buying up ice companies across the nation to control prices. In Washington, experts warn that consolidating dozens of competing delivery wagons into a single fleet will leave thousands of local workers unemployed.
- The Chemist Who Couldn't Name the Killer's Weapon
In a Seattle courtroom drama, defense attorney John Y. Torum argues that the poison used in a murder was too obscure for any professional chemist to have selected—unless the killer had access to something far more common.
- The Gold Brick Gang: How Seattle’s Smugglers Were Caught Red-Handed
A trio of young men ran a sophisticated counterfeiting ring out of their rooming house, selling fake gold bricks to unsuspecting merchants and bankers before being busted by detectives.
- The Cougar Who Saved a Cyclist’s Life
A Tacoma engineer recounts his miraculous escape after a mountain lion knocked him upright on his bicycle during a terrifying encounter.
- The Vanishing of Ida Peak: A Seattle Restaurant Girl’s Disappearance Sparks a Search
Ida Peak, a waitress at the New York Wafer House on Cherry Street, vanished after claiming she was visiting her sister in Bellevue. Her family is left with only rumors and a missing person's description.
- The Klondike Nightmare: A Millionaire’s Niece Returns Broken
After chasing gold in the frozen north, a woman with family connections to Chicago wealth returns to Seattle penniless and ruined in health, offering a grim warning to other hopeful prospectors.
- Domestic Feud in Fremont Turns Police Matter
A laborer from the Fremont neighborhood faces accusations of threatening his wife, but local authorities point to the interference of a lodger as the true source of the discord.
- The Architects' Cry: Why Building a Home in Seattle Just Got Expensive
Local builders and designers report that material costs have skyrocketed, making it impossible to price new construction accurately as the city expands.