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75 stories matching indirect
- The Road to Riches: Seattle’s $33,000 Gamble on the Snoqualmie Pass
In March 1877, local editors urged citizens to fund a toll road through the mountains, arguing that the vast grain fields east of the Cascades were Seattle's only true economic future.
- The Legislature Tried to Starve the Militia. Seattle’s Officers Rebelled.
A cut to $8,400 — and the abolition of commissioned officers — convinced Washington militia leaders that the state was quietly trying to disband its citizen army.
- The Prosecutor's Parting Shot at Stevens County's Saloons
In his final annual report, Stevens County Prosecuting Attorney J.A. Rochford counted nine penitentiary convictions, warned of pending rape cases, and told the governor the saloon trade was responsible for most crime.
- Timber and Ore: Why Washington's Two Great Industries Must Rise Together
An editorial argues that the state's stalled lumber trade and its untapped mines are a single economy — and that a live lumber market means flush times for everyone on the Sound.
- Island County Farmers to Seattle: Stop Skinning Us Through Middlemen
A tour of Island County found farmers demanding better roads, cheaper steamer rates and a direct city market—and warning that Bellingham or Tacoma could steal the trade.
- A Town Cut Off by Water: Newport's Bid for a Free Ferry
Business men pack City Hall to demand better ferry service across the Pend Oreille, as the Fidelity Lumber Co. offers to pay half the cost if the town and Bonner County come through.
- The Canal That Could Save the West: How a New Waterway Would End Seattle’s Shipping Nightmare
As the Panama Canal project gains momentum, local experts calculate that Pacific Northwest farmers are losing millions annually due to the prohibitive costs of shipping grain around Cape Horn.
- The Road Less Traveled: Seattle’s Shameful Contrast with Victoria’s Fine Highways
In 1876, the local press lambasted King County’s broken road system, praising British Columbia’s turnpikes as a model for Seattle’s own stagnant development.
- A Walla Walla Pastor Defends the Prison's Sunday 'Boxing Bouts'
Rector W. Law writes to defend Warden Coblenz and the penitentiary's Sunday programs, insisting the glove contests that scandalized critics were gentler than a schoolyard game.
- The Milk That Made Kent Grow
Kent's condenseries turn White River Valley milk into Carnation and baby food, and a struggling village becomes a dairy boomtown.
- The State Tried to Plat Their Islands
Brawley and Kinnear went to court to stop a state tide-land plat from turning 140 acres of Elliott Bay into lots and streets.
- A Joint-Stock Stage Line to Beat the Railroad to the Mines
Spokane businessmen subscribe a $20,000 company to run daily stages and freight to Eagle City, betting the gold rush will make their town the gateway to the Coeur d'Alenes.
- The Two Mrs. Van Valkenburghs
A Seattle restaurateur's elopement with a Napa woman brought a forgotten first wife out of San Francisco, claiming his divorce was fraudulent and that she was still his lawful spouse.
- The Single Tax: A Seattle Paper Takes On Henry George
In 1894 the Post-Intelligencer mounts a full-throated attack on Henry George's land-value tax, warning it would 'rob labor' and hand the ground itself to the rich.
- The Railroad Lobby's Quiet Plan to Buy a Governor and Kill the Commission
A Walla Walla editor warns that railroad interests will avoid an open fight over regulation by nominating a friendly, colorless candidate—then using him to veto the commission bill.
- Seattle Shut Every School to Stop Scarlet Fever
In May 1895 the health board ordered public, private and parochial schools closed, then ran into questions about quarantine, teachers' salaries and who would pay for a contagious-disease hospital.
- Two Dollars a Head: Seattle's Labor Commissioner Takes On the Employment Agencies
Charged with running the city's free employment office as a union errand boy, Commissioner John Lamb answers that the private agencies have been selling men jobs that do not exist.
- Two Plans, One Spring, and a $25,000 Holdup
Walla Walla's council will let voters choose between a $191,000 pipeline up Mill Creek and a cheaper gravity system at Thomas Springs — but the editor suspects a land speculation scheme is baked into the ballot question.
- Seattle's Bid to Steal the Grain Trade From Tacoma
Boosters want $75,000 in stock to build a North Seattle grain elevator and a 600-foot wharf — and snatch the Asian shipping business from Tacoma.
- The Doctors Declare War: Seattle's Health Board Orders the Schools Shut as Scarlet Fever Spreads
Backed by a city attorney's opinion, the board of health gives the school board an ultimatum — close the Rainier and South schools by nine o'clock Friday morning or the police will do it for them.
- Seattle Pastor Warns of Anarchy and Labor Unrest in 1893 Sermon
Rev. Dr. D. C. Garrett told St. Mark's Episcopal congregation that labor troubles stem from a failure to render unto God and Caesar.
- A Portland Editor Reports from the Gold Fields
E. G. Jones of Portland visits Spokane Falls and files a dispatch: the town is the 'principal city of Eastern Washington,' the mines are real, and the smart money is already building stage lines.
- The Wharf King’s Victory: Yesler Wins Millions in Land Battle
Judge Lichtenberg rules that the state cannot seize waterfront property without paying just compensation, halting the Harbor Line Commission and protecting H.L. Yesler’s empire.
- The Forest Empire That Built Washington
A sweeping 1900 survey of the state's lumber industry counted billions of feet of standing timber, 250 sawmills, and $7 million a year in wages—proof that the trees, not the cities, came first.
- Seattle’s Temple of Learning Rises Between Two Lakes
In 1895, contractors raced to finish a $200,000 campus between Union and Washington lakes—complete with copper finials, a gymnasium and a hillside observatory—before the September opening.