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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 468 |
| 1877 | 317 |
| 1878 | 91 |
| 1880 | 97 |
973 stories
- The $1,000 Payroll: How Seattle’s Hop Boom Put Cash in Local Hands
A local farmer’s record-breaking harvest didn’t just fill warehouses—it injected a thousand dollars into the city’s economy by hiring Indigenous laborers who spent their wages right here.
- The Boy Who Saw His Own Death: A Seattle Tragedy of Premonition and Fate
In October 1876, a young professor driving near Seattle experienced a chilling vision of his own demise just days before he was killed in a runaway carriage accident.
- The Race That Beat the Sea: How a Local Yacht Outpaced the Coast
Captain Burns’ Pacific coaster claims victory in a thrilling seven-round duel against the Dashing Wave, proving that beating to windward is what truly tells.
- The Engineer Who Vanished Into the Sound
A respected steamboat captain’s sudden disappearance in October 1878 sparks a desperate search and a grim theory of accidental drowning.
- The Great Housing Squeeze: Seattle's Winter Crisis of 1876
As the territory prepares for winter, a correspondent reports that only two comfortable dwellings remain vacant in Walla Walla, highlighting the acute housing shortages gripping Washington communities.
- The Great Flood of 1876: Seattle’s River Runs Wild
A historic deluge swells the Duwamish River ten feet above normal, washing away timber and threatening the fledgling city.
- The Great Fill: Seattle’s First Major Land Reclamation and the Fight for White Labor
In October 1876, workers are frantically raising Front Street to save it from the Duwamish River. The local press frames this massive public works project not just as engineering, but as a moral victory for 'white labor' over cheap Chinese competition.
- The Unlikely Paradise of the Sagebrush
While cattle ranchers once guarded their grazing ranges, a 1878 report from the Yakima Valley reveals the early, optimistic push to transform 'useless' desert land into a thriving agricultural hub.
- The Missing Payday at the First Seattle Railroad
Workers on the nascent Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad staged a walkout after a payroll error left them empty-handed.
- The Disappearance of James Goodwin
A cook vanishes from the steamer Yakima while en route from Snohomish to Seattle, leaving behind a mystery that leaves the local authorities puzzled.
- The Nerve-Wracking Election of 1876
As Seattle waited on the results of a razor-thin presidential race, telegraph wires buzzed with conflicting claims that would eventually decide the future of the nation.
- The Drunken Voter and the Drain: Seattle’s 1876 Election Reform Ideas
While the 1876 presidential election left the nation in suspense, the local Seattle press used the quiet polling day to propose strict new moral and administrative reforms for the growing town.
- The Miracle Doctor of Fall City
A smooth-talking grifter conned the countryside with fake cures and a borrowed horse, only to vanish into thin air.
- The Dentist and the Stolen Mare
A frontier community falls for a charming drifter who performed medical miracles before making off with the local postmaster's horse.
- The Pennsylvania of the Pacific
How the coal mines of Renton and the Cedar River Valley became the engine of early Seattle’s industrial expansion.
- The Saloonkeeper’s Open Letter to Seattle’s 'Hounds of Malice'
A local business owner fires back at the city’s political elite, accusing them of using moral grandstanding and the threat of liquor laws to dismantle his livelihood.
- The Perilous Climb of St. Peter's Lantern
A daredevil’s afternoon of ‘roof climbing’ in 1876 Seattle turns into a life-or-death struggle when a simple stunt leaves him dangling a hundred feet above the pavement.
- The River’s Toll on the Timber Trade
A sudden freshet on the White River washes away over 150,000 feet of logs, devastating local lumber operators and scattering timber as far as Smith’s Cove.
- The Unmasking of a Mason
A tense, public confrontation in a local Seattle establishment reveals the social friction surrounding the secret society's reputation in the 1870s.
- The Unsettled Presidency of 1876
As the nation grappled with a deadlocked electoral count in the Hayes-Tilden election, Seattle residents read a deep-dive analysis of the constitutional chaos and the risk of a political breakdown.
- The Rambling Village That Wanted to Be a City
An 1876 editorial reflects on Seattle’s humble, sprawling aesthetic, arguing that the lack of architectural grandeur was not a failure of taste, but a deliberate, democratic strategy to avoid the 'unhealthy' wealth concentration of Eastern cities.
- The Struggle for a Fire-Safe City
Early Seattleites grapple with the slow, expensive process of organizing a volunteer fire department to protect a rapidly growing town.
- The President's Vision for a Settler-Colonial Expansion
In his final annual message, President Ulysses S. Grant reflects on the centennial of the republic, the management of the post-war South, and a failed dream of annexing Santo Domingo to solve the 'Negro question.'
- The 'Sawdust Swamp': A Public Health Warning for Seattle
A century and a half ago, the Intelligencer warned that Seattle's lack of proper drainage was not just a civic embarrassment, but a lethal threat to the growing population.
- A Brutal Mill Accident at Port Blakely
A mill worker loses his foot to the saw, marking another dangerous day in the Puget Sound timber industry.