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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 2 |
| 1878 | 1 |
| 1880 | 2 |
| 1883 | 4 |
| 1885 | 3 |
| 1888 | 1 |
| 1889 | 2 |
| 1891 | 1 |
| 1892 | 5 |
| 1893 | 3 |
| 1894 | 6 |
| 1895 | 6 |
| 1899 | 1 |
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39 stories matching patch
- They Would Rather Grow Than Beg: Seattle’s Unemployed Turned Vacant Lots Into Potato Patches
In the depression year of 1893, nearly 200 Seattle men—most with families—were given free seed, tools and borrowed city lots through the Pingree plan and the Co-operative Industrial Society.
- Death on the Seattle Waterfront: A Call for Boiler Safety
An 1886 letter to the editor demands accountability for the 'shoveling engineers' and shoddy steamship maintenance risking lives in Puget Sound.
- The Disgraceful Scrawl of Territorial Law
A scathing editorial from the Weekly Dispatch reveals that the Territorial Legislature's laws were so poorly drafted, blotted, and grammatically mangled that the editor suggests burning them to avoid litigation.
- Seattle's Jobless Are Handed Potato Patches
A citizens' committee working out of a Railroad Avenue office gives out vacant land, seed and tools to more than twenty families in a single day — one of them has fourteen children.
- The Sheriff's Deadline: 'I Will Be Compelled to Hang Him'
C. W. Nordstrom has until August 31 to appeal his murder conviction, but with no money for lawyers, the King County sheriff is already building a portable gallows outside the jail.
- A Deadly Encounter on Beacon Hill
A nineteen-year-old hotel worker miraculously survives a point-blank shooting after refusing to surrender to a highwayman in the dark cuts of early Seattle.
- A Wealthy Suitor, a Slashed Awning, and Twenty-One Counts of Jealousy
A prominent Seattle property owner is charged with shredding his ex-fiancée's store awning hole by hole, driven — she says — by jealousy of the man helping her run the shop.
- When Seattle's Library Ran Out of Money
A $65 February appropriation against $400 in monthly expenses forces the library commission to close the circulating department and beg city council for relief.
- The Dolly Varden Ticket: Seattle's 1894 Scheme to Stitch Together a Political Frankenstein
Disgruntled Republicans and Democrats met in downtown Seattle to plan a hybrid 'taxpayers' ticket aimed at beating the regular Republican slate—if they could keep the seams from splitting.
- The Potato Patch That Fed 387 People: Seattle's Pingree Plan
In the hard year of 1895, a committee of Seattle citizens handed out seeds and tools to 141 unemployed families — and the city's charity rolls fell. The organizer wanted City Hall to run it.
- The Man Who Wouldn't Die: The Last Survivor of the Alamo Walks Among Us
A heroic frontiersman named Jimmy Kennon has resurfaced in Washington Territory, proving false reports of his death. He claims to be the sole survivor of the Battle of the Alamo and a legendary scout who once rescued a captive from Sioux hands.
- A Wall of Smoke and Flame Across Puget Sound
Forest fires from Hood Canal to the Nooksack Valley left dozens of families homeless in 1894, while smoke turned steamboat travel blind and daily life in Seattle into a gray haze.
- Seven Months at Sea: The State of Maine’s Ordeal
The State of Maine left New York in July 1892 and reached Seattle 201 days later, her crew disabled by saltwater boils, her water spoiled, and her captain forced to beat men to the pumps.
- The Beating of Henry Brown: A Runaway Elevator Boy and a Family's Violent Secret
A 14-year-old black elevator operator flees his home after a savage whipping by his father, revealing a tangled story of poverty, pride, and punishment in 1894 Seattle.