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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 1 |
| 1861 | 1 |
| 1876 | 9 |
| 1877 | 6 |
| 1878 | 2 |
| 1880 | 4 |
| 1883 | 3 |
| 1885 | 4 |
| 1886 | 1 |
| 1887 | 1 |
| 1888 | 1 |
| 1891 | 1 |
| 1892 | 4 |
| 1893 | 4 |
| 1894 | 5 |
| 1895 | 4 |
| 1899 | 2 |
| 1902 | 1 |
| 1903 | 1 |
| 1904 | 1 |
| 1908 | 1 |
| 1909 | 1 |
| 1910 | 1 |
| 1916 | 1 |
60 stories matching mischief
- The Weatherman’s Snowy Mishap
A local meteorologist gets lost in his own storm on a Tacoma street corner.
- Violence on the Sound: Northern Raids at Bellingham Bay
Settlers at Bellingham Bay describe a harrowing series of robberies and murders, fueling fear that northern tribes intended to systematically attack frontier settlements.
- The Revenge of the Clipped Horses
A neighborhood feud in O'Brien turns into a courtroom drama after a farmer's prize horses are spitefully shorn.
- Fire on the High Seas
A stowaway on the bark Lady Lampson, bound for the Pacific Northwest, nearly destroys the ship with a fire and a razor.
- The Great Congressional Shutdown of 1876
A historic clash between the House and Senate left federal workers across the country—and the crew of a local Revenue Cutter—stranded without pay.
- 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.
- They Killed Poor Mac
A widow steps off the stage at Pomeroy's St. George Hotel with news of her husband's death in Dayton — and the town's sympathy stops short of the dead man.
- The Unchecked 'Firewater' Trail
A rash of bootlegging and theft at the Lakeside saloon forces a local reckoning with the lack of law enforcement near Chelan.
- The 'Street Arabs' Terrorizing Pioneer Seattle
A wave of juvenile vandalism strikes Front Street, leaving local merchants and the South School House in ruins.
- The Great Telephone Switchboard Fire
A tangled mess of high-voltage arc light wires sends fireworks cascading through the central telephone exchange, nearly incinerating the entire plant.
- 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.
- A Senate Seat, a Stubborn Judge, and a Wasted Session
In January 1893, a Republican faction's refusal to honor the caucus choice paralyzed the Washington legislature and threatened Senator John B. Allen's re-election.
- The Riot at the White River Schoolhouse
A young drifter recounts how he and his companions, spurred by a mysterious 'big fellow,' turned a quiet schoolhouse into a scene of chaotic destruction.
- The Siege of the Waterfront Hoodlums
A wave of unprovoked violence by organized gangs of youths in Seattle reaches a breaking point when a young girl is struck by a thrown stone.
- The Dairy Dilemma of 1876
Before high-tech factory farming, Seattle's early settlers navigated the delicate, labor-intensive art of managing livestock health by hand.
- The City Council’s Petty Snub of Seattle’s Founder
A scathing editorial exposes how local politicians, led by a councilman, used a mundane land plat filing to insult A.A. Denny, a pivotal figure in Seattle’s development.
- The Brutal Genie of the River Valley
An 1876 editorial reflects on the cyclical devastation of Washington’s river floods and why farmers never seem quite ready for the waters to rise.
- The Midnight Treasure Hunt on Coffin Island
A fever for gold and Captain Kidd’s fabled riches sends Seattle-area prospectors into a frenzy of night-time digging.
- Halloween Mischief Causes Chaos in North Yakima
A night of Hallowe'en pranks spiraled into dangerous territory, leaving residents missing carriage wheels and a local man injured after a run-in with a wire trap.
- The Bachelor Frontiersmen of White River
An early settler describes the agricultural promise of the river valley and the social isolation of the men carving out homesteads in the dense wilderness.
- The Unfinished Ditch That Could Have Remade Seattle
An 1877 proposal to carve a channel between Lake Washington and the Sound highlights the ambitious—and forgotten—infrastructure dreams that once defined the city’s early development.
- The Struggle for the Northern Pacific Rails
As Congress debates extending the deadline for the Northern Pacific Railroad, local settlers face the double-edged sword of promised prosperity versus the loss of homestead land.
- The Silent Epidemic: Diphtheria in 1880 Seattle
A harrowing, vivid account of the early stages of diphtheria, a 'perplexing theme' of illness that terrorized families and baffled medical practitioners in the Washington Territory.
- The Great University Runaway
Two schoolboys, terrified by their principal's stern warning about broken windows, decided to flee campus entirely.
- Two Boys, Two Open Switches, and a Train Barely Saved
Jimmy Francis and Johnnie Harrier, ages 11 and 12, were sent to reform school after opening railroad switches near Snohomish and nearly wrecking a passenger train.