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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 7 |
| 1858 | 4 |
| 1859 | 7 |
| 1860 | 3 |
| 1861 | 15 |
| 1862 | 11 |
| 1863 | 6 |
| 1864 | 5 |
| 1871 | 1 |
| 1872 | 27 |
| 1876 | 130 |
| 1877 | 127 |
| 1878 | 66 |
| 1879 | 5 |
| 1880 | 21 |
| 1882 | 31 |
| 1883 | 75 |
| 1884 | 36 |
| 1885 | 78 |
| 1886 | 37 |
| 1887 | 60 |
| 1888 | 64 |
| 1889 | 178 |
| 1890 | 23 |
| 1891 | 119 |
| 1892 | 230 |
| 1893 | 212 |
| 1894 | 274 |
| 1895 | 97 |
| 1896 | 1 |
| 1897 | 4 |
| 1898 | 4 |
| 1899 | 89 |
| 1900 | 9 |
| 1902 | 4 |
| 1903 | 144 |
| 1904 | 89 |
| 1905 | 13 |
| 1907 | 3 |
| 1908 | 3 |
| 1909 | 97 |
| 1910 | 14 |
| 1911 | 19 |
| 1912 | 10 |
| 1914 | 22 |
| 1915 | 32 |
| 1916 | 69 |
| 1917 | 40 |
| 1918 | 5 |
| 1922 | 1 |
| 1923 | 11 |
| 1924 | 8 |
| 1925 | 5 |
2,645 stories matching may
- The City That Forgot How to Ride: Seattle’s Battle for Short-Term Streetcar Franchises
In May 1899, the Seattle Star warned that granting long-term monopolies to street railway companies would leave the city trapped with obsolete technology and inflated prices. The paper argued fiercely for short-term grants to keep corporations accountable—a debate that echoes in today’s transit infrastructure battles.
- The Land Grab That Stalled Seattle’s Growth
A local editorial warns that the Northern Pacific Railroad’s hoarding of millions of acres is strangling settlement and development in Washington Territory.
- The Great Seattle Fire: A Call to Rebuild
In the shadow of the 1889 Great Seattle Fire, a local editor calls for unity, resilience, and an end to public complaining as the city begins the monumental task of reconstruction.
- The Railroads Wanted a Senator, and They Worked Olympia to Get Him
A Republican paper accuses John L. Wilson of backing a railroad-friendly bill while transcontinental lines quietly lobby the legislature to send him to the U.S. Senate — and Tacoma's A.P.A. splits over the fight.
- Chinese Residents Ordered to Register—Or Face Deportation
Federal notices circulating in Seattle warned Chinese laborers that they must produce photographs and a credible witness to obtain certificates of residence under the Geary law.
- A Coxey Marcher's Family Left Destitute in Seattle
Two barefoot girls beg police for food after their father joins the industrial army marching on Washington and their mother is left unable to work.
- The Mayor's Power to Fire: Seattle's Removed Police Commissioners Fight for Their Jobs
J. G. Niggle and E. G. Cheasty argue that Mayor Byron Phelps removed them without notice or hearing—and that the city charter requires cause, not whim.
- The Great Assessment Scam: How King County Taxpayers Were Fooled by 'Blunders'
A local reporter exposes the absurdity of county tax assessments, where landowners receive notices for huge back-taxes on property they already paid off, forcing them to chase down exhausted commissioners in a cycle of bureaucratic error.
- The Man Who Borrowed $500 to Chase Gold
William Jensen returns from the Klondike with nothing but 60 cents and a story of survival, proving that in the Yukon, credit is worth more than gold.
- A Walla Walla Pastor Defends the Prison's Sunday 'Boxing Bouts'
Rector W. Law writes to defend Warden Coblenz and the penitentiary's Sunday programs, insisting the glove contests that scandalized critics were gentler than a schoolyard game.
- Measles Shuts the Schools and Empties the Pews
With 62 absentees at the high school, the board closed the building indefinitely and barred all schoolchildren from churches, Sunday schools, picture shows and public gatherings.
- Washington Asked Congress for $34,500 to Finish Carving Up the Colville Reservation
An 1894 dispatch from the capital details the surveying and allotment machinery behind opening the northern Colville Reservation to settlement — right down to the promise that the cost would be repaid 'from the proceeds of the lands when sold.'
- 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.
- The Senate’s Betrayal: A Treaty That Gave Away Seattle’s Future
A scathing Senate report warns that the new fisheries treaty with Britain surrenders American fishing rights and invites foreign control over Pacific waters.
- 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 Temple of Thought: Snohomish Builds Its Own Athenaeum
A visiting orator declares the new Snohomish Athenaeum a 'temple of science, literature, and art,' rising from the wilderness to preserve the intellectual legacy of the Pacific Northwest.
- The Seal Pup Wars: A Local Naturalist vs. The Smithsonian’s ‘Sense-Keeper’
James G. Swan, a long-time Neah Bay resident and customs inspector, challenges Henry W. Elliott’s decades-old claim that newborn fur seal pups sink like stones, offering eyewitness testimony from Captain Elijah McAlmond that they swim.
- A Valley of Perennial Wealth: The Excursion That Sold the Yakima Boom
A Puyallup delegation rides the Northern Pacific to North Yakima, tours the new Sunnyside Canal, and comes home convinced that irrigated sagebrush is the richest farmland in Washington.
- Japanese Sailors to March in Tacoma's Memorial Day Parade
In a historic first, Japanese naval regulars will march alongside U.S. troops during Memorial Day ceremonies in Tacoma.
- Seattle Lawyers Turn a Charity Baseball Game Into a Biblical War
Rival teams of Courthouse Hill lawyers announced themselves Philistines and Jacobites, issued mock proclamations, and promised a 500-pound batter—all to sell tickets for the Associated Charities.
- The Homestead Scam That Turned Public Land Into a Speculator’s Prize
An 1883 exposé from Walla Walla describes how doctors, lawyers and merchants faked frontier residency to grab government land—and why the law made perjury easy.
- The Taxpayer Who Couldn’t Sue the State
Washington’s Supreme Court dismisses the Agricultural College case, ruling that a private resident cannot halt state spending in equity—only the attorney general can.
- Eighty-Five Percent or Nothing: Kennewick's Berry Growers Vote on Selling as One
The Kennewick-Richland Marketing Union will not handle a single berry unless growers pledge 85 percent of the acreage — and the directors have stopped asking twice.
- Puget Sound's Fishing Future, Blocked by Ice and Freight
A federal fisheries report praises the region's deep harbors and salmon runs, but explains why deep-sea halibut and cod fishing has failed to pay—and what it will take to change that.
- The Judge Who Refused to Step Aside
In Thurston County court, Judge Robinson denies a change of venue in the Minkler case, rejecting claims that county prejudice or a newspaper feud had compromised him.