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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1891 | 173 |
| 1892 | 159 |
332 stories
- The County Courthouse Construction Scandal
A superintendent is forced out after refusing to accept substandard materials for the new county building.
- Chaos at City Hall: A Dispute Over Who Is Mayor
A heated council meeting descends into procedural gridlock as members argue over the legitimacy of the city's leadership.
- The School Bond Fight Turns on Who Gets the Work
As Olympia weighs a new high school, school board members promise home labor and local material—if the bonds pass. A workingmen's meeting wants that promise made binding.
- Who Owns the Shoreline? Olympia’s Tide-Land Fight
A citizens’ commission debated street grids, meander lines, and property values as appraisers prepared to price the Olympia waterfront.
- Streetcar Standoff in Olympia
A power struggle between the local light company and the street railway threatens to stall transit expansion.
- Smuggling Ring Uncovered in Olympia
Inspectors capture six men allegedly smuggled into the city via a Canadian steamer, highlighting the ongoing enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
- High Court Reverses Bribery Ruling in School Board Scandal
The State Supreme Court has ordered a new trial for three men accused of attempting to bribe a school board member with $5,000 to reconsider a textbook vote.
- Olympia Selects Design for New High School
The school board settles on a design by architect B.F.M. Weeks, sparking a debate over whether to build in brick or Tenino stone.
- Buy the Mudflats, Give Them Away, and Pray for a Payroll
Olympia's newly organized Improvement Company wants every business man in town to buy one $100 share so it can purchase the tide flats and hand them, free, to any manufacturer willing to set up shop — because railroads and construction crews come and go, but a payroll stays.
- Sheriff’s Hammer Sets the Price: Hotel Olympia Sold for $48,322.30
With no other bidders, A. H. Chambers and J. F. Gowey bought in the hotel for the Hotel Olympia Company—then the trustees named T. I. McKenny president.
- The Deal That Broke a Senator: Allen's Surrender to King County
Ex-Governor Moore recounts the pressure campaign that turned Senator John B. Allen from his allies and toward the King County faction—an insider's tale of patronage, loyalty and betrayal in Washington's early state politics.
- The Engineer Who Says Olympia Stiffed Him for Sewer Plans
A civil engineer hired to draft Olympia’s sewers says the city accepted his $700 bid, starved him of data, then canceled his contract and paid another man $1,500 for plans he calls a public nuisance.
- Suffragists Meet in Olympia as the Ballot Fight Goes to the Supreme Court
The Washington Equal Suffrage Association gathers at Tacoma Hall to choose national delegates—and to find new lawyers for a case that could decide whether women vote.
- Who Pays for the Streets That Boost Land Values?
A taxpayer objects as Olympia considers borrowing from the general fund to cover private street-grading debts in distant additions.
- Twenty-One Land Claims, One Pennsylvania Syndicate, and a Fraud Hearing in Olympia
Federal agents say twenty-one Satsop River entries were fraudulently made for an out-of-state syndicate; the contest is being heard in Olympia’s land office.
- They Burned Letters to the Dead on Ayer's Hill
Olympia's Chinese community gathered at a hillside cemetery in 1891 to honor eight departed countrymen with roast pork, red candles, wine and paper messages sent into the next world.
- The Man Who Sold Olympia's Eastside Like Hot Cakes
W. E. Sebree platted a tract on the Eastside, cleared nearly $40,000, toured Alaska and Europe — and came home to a town he hardly recognized.
- The Hotel Fire That Nearly Stayed Out of the Paper
When a blaze at the Olympia Hotel drew a sensational headline, the lessee asked the Tribune to spike the story. The paper refused—and used the fight to demand fire escapes and safer ash storage.
- Olympia’s New ‘Keeley Cure’ Promised to Break Drink and Opium Habits in Three Weeks
Dr. Watt opens a Keeley Institute in the Union block, touting a round-the-clock regimen of medicine, hypodermic injections and baths — and applications are already arriving from across Puget Sound.
- The Temperance Hall With a Deed That Wouldn't Let Go
A judge voids a ruling on the Good Templars' Columbia Street property, reopening a fight over a free library, a moral clause, and which court had the power to decide.
- The council met in secret to dig itself out of the hole it dug
A closed-door caucus of Olympia's aldermen wrestles with the bond debt their own street work created — then adjourns for drinks, with the press locked out.
- A Late-Night Arrival, a Smuggling Scare, and a Quiet Release
Customs inspectors detained five Chinese passengers who came ashore from the steamer Gatzert, but a local merchant's word and a records check left them free to go.
- The Minister, the Miracle Cure, and Olympia's War on Drink
Rev. Napoleon Hoagland preached "salvation by science" at Tacoma Hall, touting Dr. Keeley's famous remedy for alcoholism and urging Olympia to raise money so the poor could be treated too.
- The Keeley Cure Comes to Olympia
Olympia's Keeley Institute promises release from drink, and the Tribune opens a discreet charity fund for patients who cannot pay.
- The Jail Was Out of Level
Fred Neuffer was due in court for embezzlement. Instead, Olympia’s county jail became the scene of a strange one-man investigation into whether the floor itself was crooked.