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66 stories matching prank
- Thanksgiving Prank Turns Violent in North Seattle
A holiday game involving neighborhood boys resulted in a knifing and an arrest after a scuffle broke out on Battery Street.
- The Great Butter Hoax of 1859
A classic tall tale of rancid butter, two tipsy pioneers, and an elaborate prank on a local tavern keeper in Olympia.
- The Imaginary Inheritance
A young man's prank about a fake Chinese inheritance snowballs into a lucrative, accidental fortune built on social perception.
- The Boy Who Squirted Ammonia: A Spokane Youth’s Descent into Infamy
Officer Ike keeps a watchful eye on Tobias, the 'bad boy' of the Cineograph theater, after he becomes a fugitive from home and targets Japanese children with chemical pranks.
- The Zoo Proprietor and the Imaginary Beast
A skeptical showman gets a lesson in 'scientific' bluster from a tall, blue-spectacled visitor.
- The Great Mill Street Wagon Prank
A local hotel runner learns the hard way that the boys of Mill Street have a penchant for mechanical mischief.
- The $10,000 Practical Joke on Representative Judson
Legislators in Olympia pull a prank by forging a bill in the name of an unsuspecting Representative, only to have it officially recorded in the House journal.
- The Deadly Consequences of 'Just for Fun'
A sobering editorial on how boys' thoughtless pranks—like stretching ropes across sidewalks or lighting dogs on fire—result in lifelong tragedy.
- The Strange Case of the 'Woman' in the Saloon
A perplexing encounter in a Seattle saloon ignites a neighborhood scandal, revealing the tensions of gender nonconformity in the city's early frontier days.
- The Price of a Prank on the Seattle Frontier
A late-night practical joke almost turns fatal when a nervous citizen, conditioned by the rough-and-tumble reality of the city, nearly draws his pistol on a group of teenagers.
- Horrific Elevator Accident at Bank Building
A young student is permanently disfigured after a teenage elevator operator plays a dangerous prank.
- Bloody Brawl at Spencer’s Saloon
A minor prank against a patron spirals into a violent knife fight among loggers in North Yakima.
- The Drunken Gunman of Cottman Rooming House
A visiting fruit packer fires four shots through a wall for 'the fun of it,' leaving town before police can reach the scene.
- The Legislative Prank That Backfired
A Washington Territory legislator’s attempt to play a humorous political trick on a colleague turns into a serious row over parliamentary decorum.
- The Conman of the Grand Pacific
A hotelier’s prank turns into a headline as a fake British investor tricks a local reporter.
- The 'Parliamentary Picnic' at Washington’s Constitutional Convention
When the delegates gathering in Olympia in 1889 grew bored, they turned the formal proceedings of the state's founding into a chaotic, hilarious session of mock motions and procedural pranks.
- The Toll-Gate Runaway
A young woman's flirtation with danger and a reckless dash through a toll-gate causes a family scandal and the loss of a suitor.
- The Bloomer Scandal: How a Prank Turned Seattle’s University Women Into Targets
When anonymous circulars labeled the University of Washington’s physical culture class as 'vile calves,' a campus-wide hunt for the culprits revealed the era's intense policing of women's bodies and public space.
- The Wild-Goose Chase to the 'Review'
A cruel prank lures the coroner and police to a notorious house of ill-repute, only to find the 'victim' alive and well.
- Hallowe'en Pranks and Portents in 1893 Seattle
Young revelers mark All Hallows' Eve by moving gates, tricking streetcar drivers, and testing their romantic fates.
- The Great Fish Heist of Squier's Vault
A local merchant's appetite for mountain trout leads to a humiliating prank by his associates.
- The Ghosting of J.C. Icebrook
A persistent suitor looking for a 'traveling companion' finds himself ensnared in a web of elaborate decoys set by a local woman and her clever brother.
- The Cigar-Box Bomb That Came in the Mail for Gertie Spicer
A Washington woman suspected a prank, set the package on the sidewalk and opened it with a stick—just before it exploded and shook the buildings.
- The Clumsy Forgery of a Political Appointment
Dr. Alfred N. Marion was amused to receive a fake appointment letter as deputy collector of customs, a prank aimed at Seattle's political circles.
- The Deadly Cost of a 'Sporting' Joke in Sullivan County
A tragic accident near a church gathering leaves a seventeen-year-old girl dead after a careless prank with a loaded shotgun.