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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1891 | 42 |
| 1892 | 18 |
60 stories matching condit
- 'As Cold as a Barn': The Olympia Theater Fight That Spilled Into Print
When the Tribune panned the Olympia Theater, the rival Standard accused it of kicking without reason. The rebuttal names icy dressing rooms, one-dollar seats and a manager in over his head.
- Tacoma’s Democrats Wake Up to a Republican City
A bitter municipal election leaves Tacoma’s O’Brien Democrats stunned, as Republicans take the mayor’s office and most of the council.
- The State Paid the Troops That Faced the Coal Riots
Washington's Supreme Court ruled that militia sent to Gilman, Franklin and Newcastle during the 1891 coal-mine troubles acted in the state's service — and the state, not King County, had to pay.
- A Wife's Testimony Was Enough: Supreme Court Reverses Divorce Denial
The Washington Supreme Court ruled that a wife's own account of cruelty and habitual drunkenness could justify a divorce, reversing a lower court that had dismissed Nellie Lee's case.
- The Keeley Cure Comes to Olympia
Olympia's Keeley Institute promises release from drink, and the Tribune opens a discreet charity fund for patients who cannot pay.
- A Mayor, a Rigged Lottery, and the Fight for Olympia's City Hall
A month out from the municipal election, the Tribune accuses Mayor J. C. Horr of quietly fixing his fences for a second term — and the drawing of lots that handed one councilman a longer seat looks to a good many people like a put-up job.
- Tacoma Tries to Sell Itself to a Visiting New Yorker
A New York Tribune interview with Charles S. Smith set off a Tacoma-Seattle inferiority complex: real railroads versus prospective ones, wheat and coal versus new blocks and fine homes.
- The Governor, the Corporations, and the Session He Wouldn't Call
A leaked cabinet meeting shows Governor Ferry weighing an extra legislative session against the wrath of corporations—and his own officials split over whether the state can wait.
- The School Law That Existed Only in the Enrolled Bill
A $3,700 school-fund dispute in Spokane exposed a legislative clerk's error—and left Washington's superintendent asking whether the enrolled bill or the journals were law.
- There's "Dough" in Every Street Contract: A Preacher Takes On City Hall
Rev. Napoleon Hoagland reads the nation's municipal record aloud — reeking streets, a million-dollar franchise given away, councilmen who elsewhere would count themselves lucky to stay out of prison — and asks why democratic America breeds more thieves than the Tsar's Europe.
- A Sawmill Owner's Terrible Day: The Buzz Saw That Took a Leg and Nearly Two
James P. Allison was cutting logs at Clear Lake when a cant hook threw him into the teeth of an immense saw. Doctors were summoned from Olympia, Centralia and Bucoda, but the injured man waited hours for relief.
- Washington Took Their Votes. These Women Want Them Back.
Meeting at Tacoma Hall, the Equal Suffrage Association thanks the state supreme court, calls the loss of the ballot an 'outrage' that 'became national in character,' and appeals to the manhood of Washington's men.
- Buy the Mudflats, Give Them Away, and Pray for a Payroll
Olympia's newly organized Improvement Company wants every business man in town to buy one $100 share so it can purchase the tide flats and hand them, free, to any manufacturer willing to set up shop — because railroads and construction crews come and go, but a payroll stays.
- A Sick Child, an Empty Cupboard, and $22 in the Collection Plate
A Unitarian minister in Tacoma argues that charity is only a bandage, and that a man who works hard and still cannot feed his family is the church's real problem to solve.
- Olympia Bought a $1,500 Sewer Map Critics Called Worthless
A letter to the editor accuses the city council of buying a stranger's sewer plan without scrutiny—complete with a harbor reservoir already condemned in San Diego.
- Olympia's Volunteer Firefighters Warn the City: We Are One Blaze Away From Disaster
In 1891, the city's three fire companies pushed to reorganize as a single department, citing a 25-year-old hand engine, unfurnished sleeping quarters, and waterfront shacks that could turn a small fire into a catastrophe.
- Olympia’s Fight for a Deep-Water Harbor
Citizens tell the harbor-line commissioners to claim Budd Inlet’s tide flats for public wharves—not a narrow waterway that would hand the waterfront to private owners.
- The Railroad Beats the Steamboat on Puget Sound
Olympia’s favorite steamer Bailey Gatzert makes its last run as Northern Pacific trains drain the passenger trade.
- Tacoma’s 1892 Election Was a Republican Rout—and a Democratic Feud
Herbert S. Huston won the mayor’s office as Republicans swept Tacoma’s city ticket. The paper saw the real drama in a 27-year-old Democratic operative, a losing bet, and a party eating its own.
- The Boy Too Tough for the Reform School
A teenage burglar escapes Chehalis, stumps the trustees, and triggers a constitutional standoff over who must deal with an incorrigible child.
- The Valley Nobody Surveyed: Pioneers Wait for a Government Pen
A settlers' advocate returns from the surveyor-general with promises and a rapturous account of a hidden valley where poor young farmers are hewing homes out of the forest without so much as a title to their land.
- Olympia's New Council Hands 'Boss' Sickels the Purse Strings
The new city council takes office, gives Boss Sickels the powerful ways-and-means chair, and confronts a railroad-blocked sewer, a fire department asking for more hydrants and alarm boxes, and a thin city treasury.
- The Westside Railway Deal and the Councilman Who Didn't Read It
Olympia's council weighed a cheaper route through C. M. Moore's block to reach the Westside Railway—until one committeeman admitted he had signed the report blind.
- A Blind Herb Doctor and the Death of a 14-Year-Old
An Olympia coroner’s jury found that Clara M. Linton died from the botanical treatments of Dr. William T. Campbell, a blind patent-medicine practitioner who promised her father a cure.
- The Streetcar Company That Asked Olympia for Land—and Promised the Moon by July 4
In 1892, the Olympia Light & Power Company pitched an electric railway to Tumwater as a bargain for landowners: donate a strip or an acre, and watch city-limit land double in value. The trust deed gave them until Independence Day to make it real.