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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 4 |
| 1858 | 2 |
| 1859 | 6 |
| 1860 | 6 |
| 1861 | 6 |
| 1862 | 3 |
| 1863 | 3 |
| 1865 | 2 |
| 1871 | 2 |
| 1872 | 12 |
| 1876 | 41 |
| 1877 | 43 |
| 1878 | 27 |
| 1879 | 4 |
| 1880 | 9 |
| 1882 | 11 |
| 1883 | 47 |
| 1884 | 20 |
| 1885 | 40 |
| 1886 | 16 |
| 1887 | 30 |
| 1888 | 36 |
| 1889 | 75 |
| 1890 | 6 |
| 1891 | 57 |
| 1892 | 95 |
| 1893 | 91 |
| 1894 | 119 |
| 1895 | 133 |
| 1897 | 4 |
| 1898 | 20 |
| 1899 | 22 |
| 1900 | 3 |
| 1902 | 1 |
| 1903 | 58 |
| 1904 | 49 |
| 1905 | 3 |
| 1908 | 11 |
| 1909 | 52 |
| 1910 | 6 |
| 1911 | 5 |
| 1912 | 5 |
| 1914 | 8 |
| 1915 | 10 |
| 1916 | 18 |
| 1917 | 14 |
| 1922 | 1 |
| 1923 | 3 |
| 1924 | 1 |
| 1928 | 4 |
| 1929 | 2 |
1,246 stories matching cannot
- Free Wool, Free Lumber: Washington's Mill Towns Brace for the Tariff Shock
Seattle and Tacoma manufacturers warn that the new Havemeyer tariff will cut wages, ruin sheep raisers and hand the lumber trade to Canadian timbermen.
- The City That Couldn't Pay Its Bills: Seattle’s Fiscal Crisis and the Fight for Expansion
Mayor Moran and Councilman Dane plead with citizens to understand why street paving is stalled and sewer plans are shelved—not from laziness, but because state law caps the city's debt just as the population doubles.
- 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.
- The $37,500 Handshake: How Benton County's Tax Crusaders Blessed a Courthouse Deal
Prosser's anti-tax league swore it would guard the public purse to the last janitor's salary. Then its own man changed his mind on Monday, and the Kennewick editor noticed where the $37,500 went.
- The Prosecutor Says He Is Not in the Gamblers' Pocket
Seattle's prosecuting attorney goes on the record to deny a deal with a gambling fixer, and dares the sheriff and the chief of police to bring him a single witness.
- The Pit and the Claw: A Tacoma Man’s Terrifying Tale of Surviving a Bear Attack
Larsen describes the agony of being pinned in a bear trap, his arm crushed by the beast's jaws, and his desperate fight for survival in the woods near Schomaker.
- The City That Couldn't House Its Own Growth
A frustrated businessman attempts to set up shop in 1888 Seattle, only to find that despite the city's 'boasted enterprise,' the total lack of available real estate is driving investment away to Tacoma.
- A Mountain of Coffins: Franklin Buries Its Miners
After a mine fire killed 37 men, the coal town of Franklin held a day of funerals—five graves at Black Diamond, three Italian miners on a hillside, and widows whose grief doctors feared would kill them.
- Seattle's 1895 Warning: Secure Cedar River Water Before Private Speculators Do
City Engineer R. H. Thomson says Seattle's overworked pumps cannot survive another summer and urges the city to buy the Cedar River watershed, dams and reservoir sites while it still can.
- The People’s Franchise: Seattle Votes Down Municipal Ownership of Streetcars
In a pivotal moment for the city's infrastructure, voters reject the Navin resolution to take control of street railways, cementing private corporate dominance over public transit.
- Big Bend Settlers Win Land Rights Over Northern Pacific
Secretary of the Interior Hoke Smith rules against the railroad in a landmark case involving indemnity lands in Eastern Washington.
- The Tragic Last Notes of L. R. Shaw
A desperate local resident details his financial ruin, drug dependence, and final instructions to his family in a series of haunting letters before taking his own life in Seattle.
- A Chinese Merchant Lost His Store. The Judge Said He Still Had Rights.
When hard times turned Chin Chew Coy from shopkeeper to laborer, federal officials moved to deport him. Judge Hanford ruled that his treaty rights—and his Portland property—still protected him.
- The battle for control of the Puget Sound cedar trade
Eastern jobbers and railroad interests lock horns with the local shingle trust in a fight over Pacific Northwest cedar.
- A Damning Report on Seattle's Water Works
A Chamber of Commerce committee found a hastily built municipal water system, political patronage and missing maps—and urged Seattle to hire a professional engineer at $5,000 a year.
- The Brick Crisis: Why Seattle’s Boom Is Stalling Because of Empty Lots
An editorial warns that the city's rapid growth is being choked by a lack of commercial infrastructure, urging property owners to build or lease for development before capital flees to rival towns.
- The Political Toboggan: Tacoma's Revolt Against a Carpetbagger Candidate
As the state legislature prepared to convene in 1891, prominent Tacoma Republicans publicly abandoned their own local candidate, labeling him an opportunist from Indiana.
- Olympia’s Booster Year: Brick, Bridges and a 50,000-Person Promise
As 1891 closed, the capital city counted $3 million in new buildings, a record bridge, electric lights and new rail lines — and predicted 50,000 residents within a decade.
- A Railroad Wants Newport's Streets Forever — and One Lawyer Says the Constitution Forbids It
Alva S. Sherlock warns that the Idaho & Washington Northern is asking the town council for a perpetual, irrevocable franchise over 400 feet of Newport's streets — a grant that would outlive the corporation itself, and the state constitution's ban on irrevocable privilege.
- The Paper War: Port Townsend vs. Seattle
In 1876, a small rival town accused Seattle of economic sabotage over who printed their business cards.
- The Gold Rush That Never Was: How Canadian Laws Stifled Seattle’s Northern Dream
A Victoria contractor tells the Star that new British Columbia legislation has turned away American miners, leaving Alaska's gold fields dark and local businesses in ruins.
- The Battle for the Territory: Judson vs. Jacobs in the 1876 Election
As the nation grapples with the disputed presidential election of 1876, Washington Territory voters head to the polls to decide their own future, pitting Republican J.P. Judson against Democrat Judge Jacobs in a fierce contest for territorial supremacy.
- The Unpaid Bills of the James Street Cable Line
A legal dispute over the James Street cable railway ends in a victory for the company, leaving material suppliers with no way to recover their losses.
- The Debts a Country Owes Its Farmers — and Its Farmers' Wives
An 1898 farm-column editorial tallies what rural Washington neglects: untrained road supervisors, school directors so illiterate the legislature had to bar them, and farm women who never see a newspaper or a neighbor.
- Seattle's Big Bet on the Railroad Party
Seattle's boosters see a visit from Henry Villard's 600 Northern Pacific guests as the city's chance to impress Eastern capital—and they want a public reception ready.
Also about this, in other words
- Seattle's Filipino Editors Draw a Line: Restrict Us If You Must — But Never Shut Us Out
As agitation builds in Congress to bar Filipinos from the mainland, the editors of Seattle's Filipino Forum weigh the Johnson bill and conclude that a quota, however bitter, is preferable to outright exclusion — which they call an imperialist injustice.
- The Governor Vetoes Debtor Relief—and Warns It Would Speed Foreclosures
Gov. McGraw kills a bill meant to shield struggling debtors, arguing it cannot apply to existing contracts and may trigger the mortgage sales it was supposed to prevent.
- The Bureaucratic Cruelty of Chinese Exclusion
A Christian Chinese resident is denied the right to bring his wife to the United States following a restrictive court ruling.
- The Saloonkeeper Who Could Not Breathe
Albert Frederick Able, an old-time Seattle saloon man, suffocated when throat cancer closed the tube that kept him alive.
- A Taxpayer Tries to Stop the City From Writing Checks It Can’t Cover
Francis Hoffman and the Olympia Hardware Company ask a judge to block further city warrants, arguing Olympia has blown past its debt limit.
- The City Can Tear It Down: The Supreme Court Backs Seattle's Fire Limits
Daniel K. Baxter put up a twenty-foot shell of wooden posts wrapped in corrugated iron inside Seattle's fire limits. The state Supreme Court said the city could knock it down without ever going to court — and municipal building codes came out of it stronger than before.
- Canada’s Naturalization Papers Denied at the Border
Federal authorities reject the residency status of Chinese British subjects, sparking a test case for immigration restrictions.
- The Exclusion of 1888
A new federal law mandates harsh restrictions and identification requirements for Chinese laborers, forcing them to exit and enter through only six designated ports, including Port Townsend.