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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 1 |
| 1872 | 1 |
| 1876 | 2 |
| 1879 | 2 |
| 1883 | 2 |
| 1884 | 3 |
| 1885 | 4 |
| 1887 | 2 |
| 1888 | 1 |
| 1889 | 1 |
| 1891 | 5 |
| 1892 | 7 |
| 1893 | 19 |
| 1894 | 17 |
| 1895 | 16 |
| 1904 | 2 |
| 1908 | 1 |
| 1909 | 5 |
| 1912 | 1 |
| 1914 | 1 |
| 1916 | 3 |
| 1917 | 1 |
| 1918 | 1 |
98 stories matching lien
- Sewer Work Halted Amid Dispute
City council freezes funds for contractor over allegations of using rejected pipe.
- The Unfinished Street
Property owners battle the city over a tax assessment for a street that was never built.
- Fire Scare in Everett
A hardware store blaze threatened to consume a full city block of frame buildings.
- The Right to Keep Your Home After a Tax Sale
Judge Langley rules on a pivotal case challenging whether the city can cut off a homeowner's redemption rights after property is sold for back taxes.
- The Unprecedented Land Boom of 1883
Official records show a staggering surge in Seattle property transactions, dwarfing neighboring Tacoma's growth.
- The War on Weeds
Mayor Richardson threatens property owners with tax liens if they fail to clear noxious weeds before they become fire hazards.
- The Tax Collector’s Secret: How Seattle Officials Hid Debts to Profit from Advertising
A local newspaper exposes a scheme where the School District collector withheld tax information, forcing taxpayers to pay exorbitant advertising fees to clear liens they didn't know existed.
- The Loggers and the Law: A Ledger of Territory Disputes
In August 1888, the Seattle district court docket revealed a sprawling conflict over the Washington timber frontier, pitting private mills and railroads against the federal government.
- The Mill That Vanished Before Its Workers Got Paid
Kent mill hands won wage liens, then found the company's assets allegedly shifted to a new corporation—and the sheriff returning 'No property found.'
- The Great Canal Scheme Blocked
A judge strikes down a law that would have allowed private contractors to dig the Lake Washington canal and seize tide lands for profit.
- Jefferson Street Was Graded on Paper
Homeowners refused to pay an assessment for street work they say was never properly authorized—or finished.
- The Wage Theft That Shook the Front Street Cable Line
Thirteen teamsters and laborers sue the city's transit company and a contractor for unpaid wages, exposing the precarious financial lives of Seattle’s working class in the early 1900s.
- The Swindled Worker of the South Prairie Line
A laborer finds that the Northern Pacific Railroad's subcontracting system is a trap of unpaid wages and unreachable bosses.
- The High Cost of the Winehill Building
A multi-year legal battle over unpaid labor and stone work at the corner of Third and Main ends in a sudden dismissal.
- 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 Sad Tale of a Mail-Order Marriage
A romantic courtship by mail ended in divorce, a sheriff's sale, and a supreme court battle over a farm in Leland Valley.
- Ballard's Electric Company Sold for $1,210—Franchise and All
A receivership sale handed the Ballard Electric Light Company's property and franchise to a mortgagee, while the company's subscription stockholders were written off as 'wholly irresponsible.'
- The Horse Heaven Irrigation Scheme
A Paterson landowner warns of a massive bond election, citing conflicts of interest and a lack of reliable engineering data.
- The Marble Quarry That Swallowed $200,000—and the Syndicate Ready to Try Again
A new Spokane company plans to consolidate the failed U.S. Marble Company’s Stevens County properties, with Vermont investors betting on a comeback.
- Metaline's Mines Are Ready to Roar—If the Railroad Arrives
With the Idaho Washington Northern extending toward Sullivan Creek, Metaline district companies are staffing up, building mills, and betting on a shipping boom.
- Legal Battle Brews Over Irrigation Land Contracts
Ranchers served with legal papers in a foreclosure suit seek counsel to defend their land rights against the struggling White Bluffs Irrigation Company.
- The Ghost of Fort Steilacoom: Workers Cheated Out of Their Wages
A group of laborers at the new asylum construction site speak out against contractors and commissioners who left them unpaid and used rot-prone materials.
- Divers Hunting a Sunken Safe Find a Watchman in the Harbor
While searching Tacoma harbor for a Northern Pacific safe and $14,000, Seattle divers uncovered the body of William Hansen, drowned months earlier when the pump house went down in a Thanksgiving landslide.
- Seattle’s Street-Grade Tax Test Case
A judge upholds the city’s assessment method, setting up a Supreme Court fight over who pays when a street is graded under an old charter.
- The Disappearing Contractor of Madison Street
A Seattle infrastructure project hits a snag when the lead contractor vanishes with thousands of dollars in city funds, leaving his bondsmen to face the bill.