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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 |
4,679 stories
- One Punch in a Tacoma Saloon, and Three Days Later a Man Was Dead
A Seattle commercial traveler needled a dog, then a bartender. He walked the streets with a fractured skull for three days before he finally asked for a hospital — and his last coherent claim was that he'd been sandbagged.
- He Kept a $5,000 Reward Posted for His Missing Wife. Then He Drank Himself to Death.
Christine Nelson stepped into a New York hotel room in October and was never seen again. Her husband spent a fortune and two trips East searching — and died this morning at St. Joseph's.
- A Banker's Last Note: G. S. Thomas Dies by Poison in a Spokane Hotel
The cashier of Newport's First State Bank was found dead in the Colonial Hotel after months of strain over the bank's suspended payments and last-minute sale.
- A Knife on Union Avenue: Newport Lunch Wagon Owner Chases Down Cook Who Robbed Him
H. McGraw, a cook at 'Red' Warren's lunch wagon, took the night's receipts and skipped town. Warren caught him, recovered the money, and then stabbed him between the ribs.
- Four Sections Burn Along the Pend Oreille
A week-long blaze near Ruby Creek is finally checked, leaving ranchers, timber and a county bridge in ashes—and one firefighter carried ten miles to safety.
- Head-On in the Tunnel: A Fatal Collision Beneath Olympia
Two Northern Pacific trains met inside the Olympia tunnel, killing Engineer Warren of Tacoma and wrecking freight cars and tunnel roof.
- A Saloonkeeper's .32 Ends a Masked Raid on Old Town
Three masked men with Winchester rifles walked into the Dougherty & Wilcox saloon at eleven o'clock Saturday night. One of them never walked out.
- The Fern Hill Streetcar Siege
Residents of a Tacoma suburb blockade streetcar tracks for nearly 24 hours to protest a fare hike.
- Two Caucuses, One Town, and a Fight Over Water
A planned Citizens' Independent caucus split into rival meetings, producing two tickets and a resolution that candidates oppose the town's pending water-rights purchase.
- A Wall of Fire Above Tacoma Creek
A lightning-sparked blaze burns 2,000 acres, jumps a three-mile trench and pulls lumber companies, settlers and the state fire warden into a desperate fight.
- A Dollar for Three Children: Newport Officers Rescue the Zink Children
After their mother’s death, Maggie, Ruth and Clarence Zink were found underfed and living among loggers; a Spokane children’s home and a Christmas box intervened.
- The Lamp That Killed a Nurse
Margaret Humphrey, burned in an alcohol-lamp explosion at Colville's Harvey Hospital, died of her injuries.
- Drugged on the Waterfront, Shipped to Australia—and Back
J. W. Ellsworth vanished from Everett last September. His family gave him up for dead. His explanation: a shanghaied voyage aboard a lumber schooner.
- The Monster Chain: A Mill Worker Pulled Back from the Jaws of a Conveyor
At the Hoquiam Lumber Shingle Company, a conveyor chain seized a worker and began dragging him toward death — until his fellow hands stopped the machinery in time.
- A Fortune Arrives Too Late for Tunnel Foreman
N. Wickstrom, a careful and sober tunnel foreman, was crushed by falling rock at Blueslide — on the same day a letter told him a long-awaited court judgment had come through.
- The Man Who Came Back from the Tundra with $1.8 Million
Nels Peterson sinks his fortune in a Yukon steamboat, hits rock bottom in Nome, then strikes it rich on a bench claim—arriving in Seattle with enough gold to buy a city block.
- The Colfax Contempt: A Honeymoon on the Chain Gang
In a bizarre twist of justice and timing, D. Franklin Squibb married his new bride just weeks after his divorce was finalized—only to find himself serving hard labor for contempt of court.
- Smelter Workers Robbed at Gunpoint
Nine men and one woman were held up by masked bandits near the Tacoma Smelter on payday night, but clever victims managed to hide their cash.
- Tacoma’s Theater Safety Crisis
Following the horrific Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago, local inspectors scramble to identify hazards in Tacoma’s aging entertainment venues.
- The Professor and the Stewardess
A Vashon Island college professor was physically confronted on a steamer by a former employee over accusations of theft.
- A Steep Price for a Ten-Cent Robbery
A cumulative sentence law in Washington State leads to a twenty-year prison sentence for a man who robbed a bridge pedestrian of only a dime.
- Fireworks Panic at Wright Park
A lack of basic safety measures at Tacoma's Fourth of July celebration nearly leads to a deadly stampede.
- Old Town Waterfront Sabotaged
A new stevedoring scow is destroyed in a midnight explosion as labor tensions simmer on the Tacoma docks.
- A Fatal Wagon Ride on South Second
A local resident dies after a tragic accident when his team is spooked by an early automobile.
- Was a Fatal Surgery Necessary?
A coroner’s inquest casts doubt on medical practices after a patient dies following an allegedly unneeded operation at Providence Hospital.