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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1883 | 2 |
| 1886 | 2 |
| 1887 | 1 |
| 1889 | 8 |
| 1891 | 2 |
| 1892 | 2 |
| 1893 | 5 |
| 1894 | 5 |
| 1895 | 9 |
| 1899 | 3 |
| 1903 | 2 |
| 1904 | 1 |
| 1909 | 1 |
43 stories matching furth
- The City Goes After Its Missing $5,381 — and the Bondsmen Who Signed for It
Seattle sues ex-City Treasurer W. L. Ames over unaccounted street-assessment money, naming ten prominent citizens who pledged $10,000 each. Ames is conveniently away on Whidbey Island.
- Rising from the Ashes: The Great Seattle Fire of 1888
While the downtown core smoldered, Seattle citizens gathered in the courthouse—lit by tallow dips—to demand a modern city of brick and stone, rejecting makeshift wooden shacks and dreaming of a reconstructed metropolis.
- Three Barks, a Yesler Mortgage, and a Race to the Courthouse Door
A federal judge ordered the Tidal Wave, Northwest and Vidette sold to satisfy a mortgage from Henry Yesler's estate. Hours later, unpaid suppliers slapped liens on the hulls — raising a question in admiralty law no court here had faced.
- The Franchise Fight: Seattle’s Battle for Control of the Streets
As the Corporation Committee prepares to report on the street railway franchise, a fierce debate erupts over whether the city should sell its public assets to private developers for 40 years or keep them in public hands.
- The 1895 Push to Split Seattle From King County
A Chamber of Commerce meeting with new state legislators turned into a drive to separate Seattle from King County—and to force the school board to live within its means.
- The Legislators Who Came to See a Ditch—and Left Believers
A steamboat tour of Smith Cove and Lake Union turns Eastern Washington lawmakers into ship-canal converts.
- The Canal Fund Was Almost Full—and St. Louis Was Waiting
Seattle waterway boosters needed $50,000 to start contract No. 3. With a deadline looming, Eugene Semple promised the money in three or four days.
- The Streetcar Empire That Ran Out of Track: Griffith's Realty Collapse
A Seattle street-railway magnate's tangled web of notes, mortgages and second-mortgage bonds is handed to trustees — with $360,000 in property and a trail of debt.
- The Gentrification of Early Seattle
A 1889 land prospectus uses the promise of a new streetcar line to drive up property values, listing an elite roster of buyers to signal progress—and profit.
- St. Louis Money Was Ready—If Seattle Guaranteed the Canal
In 1895, a citizens' committee moved to raise a public subsidy for locks, bridges and right-of-way so a $7 million tide-flat and canal scheme could begin.
- Who Gets to Rewrite Seattle's Charter — the Council or the People?
A crowded, argumentative hearing at City Hall: the Chamber of Commerce is accused of a 'somersault,' a lawyer sneers at 'the people,' and Dr. Ramsey answers a councilman with a line of Latin.
- The Streetcar Stranglehold: Eastern Capitalists vs. Seattle’s Future
As a coalition of wealthy investors from the East seeks to monopolize Seattle’s street railway system with a 18-year franchise, local legal advisors warn that without it, the deal collapses—igniting a fierce debate over municipal ownership and corporate power.
- A Senate Seat, a Caucus, and a Yakima Ditch Deal
In Olympia, Republicans moved to settle the U.S. Senate contest between Ankeny and Wilson—while opponents circulated a story that Wilson had traded a Congressional favor for stock in a Yakima irrigation scheme.
- The Senator’s Farewell: Mrs. Squire’s Lobby Battle and a Pledge to 'All the People'
As Watson Squire prepares to leave Seattle for Washington D.C., his wife recounts the chaotic reality of their election victory at the Olympia hotel, while he pledges impartial service to the entire state.
- Seattle Buries Bailey Gatzert Under a Grave of Flowers
The ex-mayor, banker and merchant drew hundreds to the Rainier Hotel, where Masons, city officials and civic societies honored a pioneer.
- Sell the Bonds, Build the Furnaces: Seattle's Steel Gamble
A 1902 prospectus asks ordinary Seattle savers to finance a Pacific Coast iron and steel empire — a furnace at Irondale, open-hearth works on the West Seattle waterfront — with a hundred dollars of stock thrown in free with every hundred-dollar bond.
- A Revolver at the Polls: Seattle’s Republican Primary Erupts
Seattle’s Republican primaries collapsed into shouting, challenged voters, fake tickets and a police chief drawing his revolver to declare the polls open.
- The Missing Will That Would Have Given Seattle a Library
Henry Yesler's widow and two doctors are arrested, accused of burning a will that left the pioneer's fortune—and his mansion—to the city.