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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 468 |
| 1877 | 317 |
| 1878 | 91 |
| 1880 | 97 |
973 stories
- The Frontier Scares of 1878
A report from Kittitas detailing a violent encounter on Poll Creek sparks fears of conflict between settlers and Wilbur’s band of Indians in the Yakima territory.
- The Tragic End of a Seattle Logger
After years of success followed by a swift decline in fortune, a once-prosperous logger faces the ruin of his livelihood and his mental health.
- The Struggle for the Rails: Seattle’s Economic Isolation in 1880
As the Seattle & Walla Walla Railroad is sold to Henry Villard's powerful combine, local editors fear the city's economic future will be shackled to Portland's river monopoly.
- The Broken Promise of the Puyallup Coal Road
A political scandal erupts as Seattle accuses an attorney of pocketing fees while failing to stop the Northern Pacific Railway from seizing massive swathes of King County land.
- The Seattle Land Grab of 1880
A former Delegate to Congress accuses a prominent Seattle attorney of sabotaging a deal to save King County land, sparking a bitter political feud.
- The Skagit Stand-off: A Survey Interrupted
When federal surveyors moved onto Skagit lands without a treaty, they were met by 150 armed warriors ready to defend their sovereignty.
- The Sawmill Scandal: Henry Yesler’s Long Legal War
Before the city grew, Seattle’s founding titan was locked in a decade-long, bitter courtroom battle over his sawmill, revealing the ruthless undercurrents of the frontier economy.
- The Great Seattle Lottery: A $100,000 Sawmill and a Road to Nowhere
In 1876, the Washington Territory legislature authorized a massive public lottery to fund a road through Snoqualmie Pass. The grand prize? Yelver’s Steam Saw Mill. It was a bold gamble on infrastructure that reveals how early Seattle funded its growth.
- The Seattle Coal Cooperative of 1876
A century and a half ago, Seattle workers formed a mutual benefit mining company to secure their own fuel and profits.
- The Great 'Zigzag' of Seattle's Waterfront
In 1876, a frustrated editor took on the city's chaotic street planning, where Commercial Street dead-ended into a 'higgledy-piggledy' row of stores, forcing travelers to detour just to reach the waterfront.
- The Mystery of the Drowned Man’s Missing Fortune
In July 1870, Seattle’s probate court launched a frantic investigation into whether $2,000 vanished from the pocket of John Filfe, who drowned in Puget Sound days earlier.
- The Rising Sentiment Against Chinese Labor in Seattle
An editorial reflection on the arrival of Chinese laborers in Seattle and the prevailing local attitudes regarding their employment.
- The Bread and Butter Vote: How the Custom House Ring Rigged Port Townsend Politics
In a stunning display of patronage politics in September 1876, federal employees in Port Townsend marched in lockstep to defeat local opposition, proving that government jobs were still the ultimate political currency.
- The Jailhouse Serenade: Seattle’s Most Popular Prisoner Refuses Bail
Val Wildman, proprietor of the 'Vanity Fair' lottery, sits in King County Jail refusing to pay his fine. When friends and influential citizens gather outside to raise the money for his release, he turns them away—insisting his imprisonment is a matter of principle.
- The Wharf That Ate Its Workers: Seattle’s First Major Infrastructure Failure
In September 1876, a newly built lumber wharf in Seattle collapsed under the weight of its own laborers, sending Chinese workers and timber plunging into the Duwamish River. The disaster exposed the rotting reality of territorial construction and the precarious lives of immigrant labor.
- The Dog Tax That Barked Back: Seattle’s First Crackdown on Strays
In 1876, the City Council passed a law requiring every dog to wear a numbered collar and pay a tax—or face execution. The result? A chaotic hunt for unlicensed mutts and a grim new reality for the city's half-starved strays.
- The Scandal of the Navy Yard Font: A Love Triangle, a Divorce, and a Stolen Altar
In September 1876, Seattle was rocked by a domestic dispute between two prominent women that spilled into accusations of theft from the U.S. Navy Yard.
- The Tragic End of a Young Woman in Love
A nineteen-year-old Seattle woman dies by suicide after a romantic disappointment, sparking local gossip about strychnine and heartbreak.
- The Father Who Stopped a Play to Steal His Daughter
A wealthy Indianapolis patriarch tracks his romantic daughter to Seattle in 1876, only to find she has eloped with a lawyer and vanished into the West.
- The Hotelkeeper Who Jumped to Escape Justice
A Port Gamble innkeeper’s dramatic leap from a second-story window reveals the gritty reality of justice in 1876 Seattle.
- The Man Who Shot at a Chinese Girl and Then Tried to Fight the Police
A drunken brawl on Washington Street ends with a drunkard in irons, revealing the volatile mix of frontier lawlessness and early civic order in Seattle.
- The Boys Who Stowed Away: A Seattle Harbor Adventure
Two young stowaways from the Yakima country were discovered hiding in the coal bunkers of a tugboat bound for Olympia. Rather than turning them away at sea, the captain and crew took pity on the frightened youths, feeding and clothing them until their relieved parents could send a telegram.
- The Girl Who Danced on the Boom: A Seattle Near-Miss
In October 1876, a young girl’s reckless game on a floating log boom in Elliott Bay nearly ended in tragedy, sparking warnings about parental neglect and the dangers of Seattle’s waterfront.
- The Scandal at Yesler’s Wharf
A political candidate attempts to clear his name after being accused of bribing a man to bury a criminal indictment.
- The Displacement of Chinese Women in Early Seattle
Local courts and newspapers in 1876 actively campaigned to criminalize and drive out Seattle's Chinese community, viewing their presence as a blight on property values.