Research the archive
Narrow 27,002 newspaper stories by words, years, place, newspaper and subject. See when and where they ran, then download what you find.
Put a phrase in quotes ("rent strike") or leave a word out with a minus (strike -baseball). Old scans misspell names, so when little is found, near-spellings are offered.
Refine
Show the numbers
| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1859 | 1 |
| 1872 | 1 |
| 1876 | 4 |
| 1878 | 3 |
| 1882 | 2 |
| 1883 | 2 |
| 1884 | 3 |
| 1886 | 1 |
| 1887 | 5 |
| 1888 | 1 |
| 1889 | 3 |
| 1890 | 1 |
| 1891 | 4 |
| 1892 | 11 |
| 1893 | 3 |
| 1894 | 6 |
| 1895 | 2 |
| 1898 | 1 |
| 1899 | 3 |
| 1900 | 1 |
| 1903 | 6 |
| 1904 | 4 |
| 1910 | 2 |
| 1911 | 3 |
| 1916 | 2 |
| 1917 | 2 |
77 stories matching inflat
- The Boom-Time Promises of Brooklyn, Seattle
A 19th-century real estate advertisement paints a picture of a rapidly inflating Seattle and the hopeful, speculative fervor surrounding the Lake Union district.
- The Candidate Who Refused to Promise a Bridge
Running for representative, Gordon C. Moores argues that effective legislation requires compromise rather than the 'hobby-riding' log-rolling that clutters the statute books.
- The Great 1910 Census Padding Scandal
Across Washington state, towns are inflating their populations with ghosts, hobos, and unborn children to secure their status.
- The High Price of Delinquency
An Aberdeen taxpayer exposes how the county's tax collection laws inflate minor debts into heavy penalties for ordinary residents.
- The Water Monopoly
Critics allege the First National Bank is steering the city council toward an expensive water project to inflate the value of land it holds in escrow.
- The Newspaper Monopoly Holding Seattle Hostage
In 1887, the Post-Intelligencer exposed a 'printing ring' between rival newspapers that artificially inflated the cost of public contracts.
- The High Cost of Being a Farmer
A scathing breakdown of how protective tariffs inflate the daily expenses of Washington homesteaders.
- The Real Estate Pitchman: Seattle’s ‘Healthy’ Boom Before the Railroads Arrived
In September 1876, just two years before the Northern Pacific Railway would transform the town, a local newspaper ran an aggressive Q&A ad promising steady property values and fertile soil to entice settlers from Nebraska.
- The Million-Dollar Tug-of-War Over Seattle's Waterfront
When two railway titans clashed over the location of a union depot, Seattle's newspapers turned the city's future into a public spectacle of corporate ego and investigative scoops.
- The Salted Sea: A Tacoma Captain’s War on the 'Blah' Price Gang
In a fiery letter to the editor, a local shipping captain denounces the collusion of dockworkers and merchants who inflate freight rates, vowing to bypass them entirely for cheaper ports.
- The Meat Cartel and the Working Man’s Supper
When local butchers formed a monopoly to inflate the price of beef, Seattle’s working class turned to fish and bacon—and the local press took notice.
- The Bankrupt Giant and the Tacoma Land Ring
A skeptical editor exposes the Northern Pacific Railroad's questionable finances and a suspicious telegraph campaign used to inflate land values in Tacoma.
- The Railroad That Bought Its Way to Glory
While the rest of Seattle debates politics and morality, a coalition of bankers and developers is quietly laying the groundwork for the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad, betting millions on land and gold bonds.
- The President's Visit: Roosevelt, the 'Mysterious Syndicate,' and the Fight for Pasco’s Soil
In May 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt toured Walla Walla, drawing massive crowds and sparking local fears of land speculators. While his speech at Whitman College praised pioneer virtues, a parallel editorial warned that a 'Seattle Syndicate' was hoarding arid land near Pasco, betting on federal irrigation projects to inflate prices for settlers.
- The Great Seattle Land-Grab Controversy
A political advertisement from 1889 exposes a list of prominent Seattle figures accused of inflating real estate prices and manipulating the local land market.
- The Quartermaster’s Arithmetic: Scrip, Pork, and Profiteering in Washington Territory
A detailed audit of Quartermaster General W. W. Miller’s books exposed inflated prices, unexplained payments, and scrip issued for vouchers the commissioners had already disallowed.
- The Mining Promoter Who Told Would-Be Miners to Stay Home
Col. W. Thomas Hart has bonded claims and cut a trail in the new Slate Creek district, but he begs the press not to inflate the strike: there is no work, no mill, and too much snow for prospecting.
- The Paper War: How Seattle’s ‘Public Thieves’ Exposed a Corrupt Ring
In 1872, the *Puguet Sound Dispatch* accused local officials and the rival *Intelligencer* of extorting taxpayers through inflated advertising rates for tax sales, framing it as a 'Tammany ring' stealing from the public.
- The City That Forgot How to Ride: Seattle’s Battle for Short-Term Streetcar Franchises
In May 1899, the Seattle Star warned that granting long-term monopolies to street railway companies would leave the city trapped with obsolete technology and inflated prices. The paper argued fiercely for short-term grants to keep corporations accountable—a debate that echoes in today’s transit infrastructure battles.
- The Reverend’s Estate: A Seattle Administrator Accused of Paying Himself First
Rev. L. Parker wants the court to approve his accounts, but a special administrator says he spent estate money without permission, inflated legal fees, and sent a mortgage to his brother in Canada.
- The Snohomish Land Grab: How Original Owners Inflated Prices and Plotted in the Dark
A scathing review of the town's growth reveals a community divided by greed, where original plat owners are accused of hoarding land and manipulating records to squeeze newcomers out of the real estate boom.
- The Palouse Wheat Boom Was a Gold Mine—Until the Debt Came Due
An agricultural professor traces the Palouse’s speculative wheat economy: inflated land purchases, the rain-ruined crop of 1893, the panic that followed, and the sudden recovery by 1897.
- The Real Estate Gold Rush: How Seattle’s Early Boomers Made Millions on Dirt
A Sunday editorial in the Post-Intelligencer lays bare the staggering profits of land speculation in 1883, revealing how a few savvy investors turned hundreds of dollars into fortunes through sheer timing and location.
- The Dead Horses That Taught Tacoma How to Raise Sunken Ships
A Tacoma patent company says its collapsible air bags can lift wrecks from the sea floor—a trick supposedly inspired by a bloated boatload of horses in the Ohio River. Investors are already fighting over the fortune.
- The Store That Measured a Town's Ambition
A visit inside Chas. Sweeny & Co.'s new Union Block emporium — 6,000 square feet, a dozen chandeliers, a basement packed to the rafters — as proof that Spokane Falls had arrived.