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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1859 | 1 |
| 1876 | 10 |
| 1877 | 2 |
| 1878 | 2 |
| 1879 | 1 |
| 1880 | 2 |
| 1882 | 2 |
| 1883 | 5 |
| 1884 | 4 |
| 1885 | 3 |
| 1888 | 2 |
| 1889 | 3 |
| 1891 | 5 |
| 1892 | 4 |
| 1893 | 6 |
| 1894 | 2 |
| 1895 | 12 |
| 1898 | 1 |
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| 1903 | 1 |
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| 1914 | 1 |
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| 1916 | 5 |
| 1917 | 3 |
| 1922 | 1 |
| 1924 | 1 |
85 stories matching earliest
- Seattle’s First City Hall: A $500 Bill for Front Street
In September 1876, the fledgling city council authorized a payment to George Edwards for rebuilding the cribbing and earthworks on Front Street, marking one of the earliest municipal infrastructure contracts in Seattle's history.
- The Pioneer’s Tale: A Life in the Early Puget Sound
Captain Henry Roeder, one of Whatcom County’s earliest settlers, recounts his journey from the California gold fields to establishing the region’s first sawmill.
- The Boat Builder and the Missing Cornerstone
Courtland Ethridge arrived in Olympia in 1851, built some of its earliest landmarks, and left behind a Masonic hall with a mystery buried under it.
- The Fire That Saved Us: A Call for a Second Steamer
A Seattle resident writes to the Post-Intelligencer arguing that the recent downtown blaze proves the city’s single fire engine is no longer enough—and demands an immediate duplicate.
- After the Great Fire, Seattle Faced a Crisis of Shelter
With the city center in ashes, temporary lodging became the most pressing demand for a bustling frontier town.
- The Canal Fund Creeps Toward Its Goal
Seattle’s Lake Washington waterway subsidy inches upward as a Northern Pacific Railroad lawyer promises Eastern capital will do its part.
- The Great Steamship Wars of Puget Sound
A fierce battle for transit supremacy erupts as railroad giants clash over the future of Seattle’s harbor trade.
- The Potato Crisis of 1877
As Puget Sound farmers face crop failure from decades of neglect, editors call for a shift to the 'fine art' of fruit cultivation.
- Pioneer and Pataha Prairie Founder Dies at 77
Zenas A. Baldwin, an early settler of Garfield County who arrived in California during the vigilante era, passes away near Pomeroy.
- Milling Corporations Snap up Washington Territory's Timber Lands
How corporate mills monopolized Washington's forest wealth while the government looked the other way.
- The Mail System is Broken
In 1880, Seattle residents faced endless delays and 'willful neglect' from the postal service—an early grievance about failing public infrastructure.
- The Looming Water Crisis
A 1893 report warns that Seattle's pumping system is failing and proposes the Cedar River gravity system as the only way to meet the city's future needs.
- The passing of a pioneer who helped tame the West
Donald C. Cresswell, who arrived in the Oregon Territory in 1852, dies at 86, leaving behind a legacy of resilience and old-fashioned independence.
- Labor Unions Demand Action on Border Enforcement in 1886
An exchange of letters between the Seattle Knights of Labor and the Collector of Customs highlights early local anxieties over immigration policy.
- The Beach Road That Wasn't: Seattle’s First Infrastructure Crisis
In May 1877, the *Seattle Daily Intelligencer* sounded the alarm over the deteriorating condition of the city's primary artery to the waterfront, blaming poor drainage and a lack of gravel for turning the vital thoroughfare into a muddy trough.
- Early Whitman County Pioneer Found Dead in Hotel
H. S. Young, a prominent early settler of Whitman County, passes away in a local hotel while seeking relief from illness.
- The People’s Franchise: Seattle Rises Against the Streetcar Monopoly
In June 1899, hundreds of citizens packed Armory Hall to declare 'No More Franchises,' demanding that the city council stop selling off public rights-of-way to private railway companies without voter approval.
- The Knights of Labor Demand Action on the Border
A fiery 1885 exchange reveals deep tension between Seattle's labor unions and federal officials over the lax enforcement of Chinese immigration restrictions.
- The Railroad Raises Its Rates, and the Northwest Howls
Spokane Falls merchants protest a Northern Pacific freight hike that makes shipping from Minneapolis cost as much as shipping from New York — and warn the railroad it is strangling its own territory.
- The Arctic Ghost Ships Found in a Seattle Paper
A haunting inventory of the lost Franklin Expedition, recovered by Lieutenant Schwatka, offers a somber look at the items that survived a generation in the ice.
- Bond Battle: King County Treasurer Resigns After Commissioners Reject His Surety
A.P. Mitten steps down after the board refuses his bond, declaring the office vacant—but not before a pointed exchange over legal instructions.
- The Divorce Decree: A Seattle Woman’s Fight for Freedom from Willful Abandonment
In July 1876, Eliza Carakaden was served with a summons in King County District Court, marking one of the earliest recorded legal battles for divorce in the young settlement of Seattle.
- Seattle Citizens Plot to Block Monopoly: Injunction Threatened Over 40-Year Streetcar Franchise
A coalition of concerned citizens is mobilizing against the city council's potential grant of a forty-year monopoly to the Seattle Railway Company, warning that legal action will follow if the charter is violated.
- Seattle Bet Everything on a Ship Canal—and the Clock Was Running Out
For forty years Seattle had dreamed of linking Lake Washington to Puget Sound. By April 1895, with nearly $50,000 raised in two days and the state preparing to sell the tide lands, the city faced a make-or-break moment.
- Labor Blames Railroad's Strike Replacements for a Deadly Wreck Near Everett
After three die in a Great Northern crash north of Everett, the State Federation of Labor tells federal regulators that the road's non-union replacement crews are running unsafe equipment — and that the government shares the blame.