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| 1859 | 1 |
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45 stories matching toe
- A Christmas on the Ice King: The Climb That Saw Rainier Smoking
In 1894, Major Ingraham led six men, seven homing pigeons, and a camera onto Mount Rainier’s glaciers. They came back with frostbite, a story of steam and smoke rising from the crater—and one pigeon missing.
- A Body in the Ashes at Rolling Bay
An eyewitness to the coroner's inquest corrects the Post-Intelligencer's lurid account of a bullet-scarred, half-burned corpse found in a shack on Bainbridge Island — and lays out his own theory of an unsolved Kitsap County killing.
- The Great Detective Panic of North Yakima
When word reached town that a Chicago detective had arrived by stagecoach, dozens of the city’s leading men fled into the freezing wilderness, resulting in frozen limbs, broken bones, and a ruined reputation.
- The True Cost of Living
A haunting poem from the era exposes the impossibility of supporting a family on a mill worker's starvation wage.
- The Brutal Efficiency of the Newsboy's Union
When the newsboys couldn't keep order during their meeting on Yesler Wharf, the president and his officers resorted to canes to restore discipline.
- Surveying the Wilderness for Iron Rails
As the Northern Pacific Railroad push reached deep into the Montana and Washington territories, engineers braved brutal winter storms and rugged mountain passes to chart the future of the Northwest.
- The Healing Lake That Hid a Walking Fish
On the Columbia plateau near Spokane lies a strange saline lake with no inlet and no outlet — credited with curing rheumatism, foaming like soap in the wind, and home to an axolotl that fooled the naturalists.
- The Day Fall City Danced: A July 4th Celebration in the Shadow of War
While General Howard debated tactics against Native tribes elsewhere in Washington Territory, residents of Fall City gathered in a cedar grove to celebrate the nation's birthday with speeches, picnics, and swings.
- Outweighed Eighteen Pounds a Man, Whitman Nearly Stunned Pullman
A 75-yard touchdown run by Elmo Reser kept the Missionaries in it until the final fifteen seconds, when the Aggies' sheer weight finally told, 18 to 6.
- City Left in the Dark by Gas Failure
A mechanical error at the gas works plunged Tacoma into darkness, ruining breakfasts and sparking public frustration.
- The Struggle for Survival in the Age of Gangrene
A local man faces multiple amputations and a critical prognosis following a long battle with infection.
- The Steamer That Never Came: Steilacoom's Broken Promise of a Pleasure Trip
A hundred neighbors set aside their work for a promised steamboat excursion to Olympia — but the boat failed to show, the crowd simmered, and the day ended in a dance hall instead of on deck.
- The 'Kid Committee' Sinks Andrew Jackson
A patronage feud at city hall topples the water works superintendent—then a procedural trick sets up a second vote.
- The Olympia Undertaker’s Strange Discovery
A man’s beard reportedly continued to grow for twenty years inside his coffin, eventually filling the space.
- The Bear Who Drank the Molasses: A Lumber Camp Disaster
A hungry black bear broke into a West Branch Lumber Company supply shed in Washington's Cascade Mountains, getting hopelessly stuck in a keg of molasses and becoming a spectacle for the workers.
- The Seattle Star's 'Inklings': A Glimpse into 1906 Courtroom Drama and Civic Life
From a bitter divorce trial involving accusations of insanity to the arrest of nineteen men selling whisky to Native Americans, this page captures the gritty, colorful daily life of Seattle in April 1906.
- A Perilous Afternoon near Lake Union
A brush with disaster in the rugged timberlands of 1877 Seattle, where an accidental axe blow turned a day of surveying into a desperate journey for survival.
- The Aristocratic Goose of Seattle
A satirical fable from the 1880 Seattle Daily Intelligencer offers a sharp critique of status-seeking and the folly of high-society marriages.
- The Country Estate as Medicine: Why Seattle’s Elite Are Buying Farms to Save Their Nerves
A satirical essay in the Daily Intelligencer argues that small country plots are not financial investments, but essential health remedies for city professionals suffering from 'trade winds' and nervous exhaustion.
- The Moss-Cloaked Giants of Bay Center
A teacher’s letter from the Pacific Northwest frontier describes a landscape of colossal trees and lush undergrowth, challenging the myth of the harsh pioneer struggle.