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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1872 | 1 |
| 1876 | 7 |
| 1877 | 2 |
| 1878 | 4 |
| 1880 | 1 |
| 1882 | 1 |
| 1883 | 1 |
| 1884 | 3 |
| 1885 | 4 |
| 1886 | 1 |
| 1887 | 4 |
| 1888 | 1 |
| 1889 | 12 |
| 1891 | 4 |
| 1892 | 6 |
| 1893 | 11 |
| 1894 | 4 |
| 1895 | 11 |
| 1899 | 3 |
| 1903 | 1 |
| 1904 | 1 |
83 stories matching parlor
- The Price of Living on the Hill
A Queen Anne home burns to cinders while the fire department struggles to reach the summit, sparking a civic row over missing infrastructure.
- The Morning the Graphophone Spoke
A group of Seattle scientists and journalists gathered in 1888 to witness the wonders of Thomas Edison's new 'graphophone' recording device, marveling at its ability to capture and reproduce human speech.
- The Strange Heist at the Palmer Inn
A 'masculine-looking' woman and a mysterious accomplice used a passkey to clean out a Seattle boarding house, leaving guests with empty trunks.
- The Sawmill Man’s Dream of Refinement
A boisterous sawmill owner, caught drunk and disorderly in Seattle, offers a surprisingly poetic vision of domesticity to a judge in 1878.
- A Glimpse Inside Fred Gasch’s Modern Seventh and Union Home
A detailed look at a high-end Victorian residential build in 1885 Seattle, highlighting the era's transition toward 'hard-finished' interiors and local craftsmanship.
- The Haunted Theater of Seattle: A Superstition of 1876
A group of locals at the Occidental Hotel exchange tales of theater lore, specifically the peculiar story of a spider that allegedly predicted the success of a New York stage house for ten consecutive seasons.
- The Mayor’s Raid: Seattle’s Gambling Houses Shut Down in One Night
Mayor Hume and Police Chief Sullivan execute a council resolution, closing every known gaming parlor in the city. Was it moral reform or a power play against saloon owners?
- The Banquet That Built Seattle's Legal Elite
In 1903, the city’s most powerful lawyers gathered at the Rainier Hotel to honor Judge Julius Stratton, cementing a social network that would shape Washington State's legal landscape for decades.
- The Bachelor's Ruse: A Victorian Love Game in Seattle
A lonely Seattle bachelor attempts to 'test' his ward’s character through a series of elaborate, scholarly letters, only to find himself the one being studied.
- The Hammer in the Kitchen
A killer waited until the men left for a labor-hall meeting, then entered a Seattle house, beat Mrs. Miller and her baby to death, looted a valise, and set the place ablaze.
- The High Cost of City Living in 1876
An expatriate writing from London offers a comparative analysis of the staggering costs of housing, labor, and provisions in New York City versus abroad.
- The Sisters' Sanctuary on Fifth Street
In 1878, the Sisters of Charity opened Seattle’s first formal hospital, establishing a legacy of public health and care for the city’s 'afflicted and homeless.'
- The Blundering Firefighters of Pioneer Square
A satirical look at a day when a local livery stable fire turned into a slapstick comedy of errors for Seattle's volunteer hook and ladder company.
- A Dog Led Seattle to a Dead Newborn—and a Woman in Black
A sugar-sack bundle hidden at Squire Avenue and Barclay Street held a newborn with a crushed skull; the mother vanished into the night.
- The Evangelists and the Brothel
In 1887, a group of women conducted prayer meetings inside Seattle’s houses of prostitution, confronting the grim reality of life for the women living and working within.
- She Fell Into Puget Sound and Woke to Fishermen at Dawn
An 18-year-old hotel guest went shell hunting near Smith Cove, slipped between the logs, and spent a rainy night unconscious on the beach before two fishermen found her.
- The Man Who Bought His Last Meal with Strychnine
A carpenter checks into a Seattle boarding house, complains of abdominal pain, and dies by suicide in Room 23—leaving behind a diary entry that reads like a ghost story.
- The Mule-Mounted Howitzer Fiasco
An ambitious Army experiment at a Western fort goes hilariously and dangerously wrong when a cannon-strapped mule decides to take matters into his own hooves.
- The Mattress They Took From the Children
A teamster's hospital stay turned a $136 loan into a chattel-mortgage seizure—and a lawsuit over the mattress his children slept on.
- The Diva’s Relic: When a Sacred Charm Held Up a Seattle Opera
A superstitious cantatrice once refused to perform because she’d lost a piece of the True Cross—forcing her manager to hunt through trunks until the curtain rose.
- The Anti-Catholic Crusade That Filled a Seattle Hall
In 1895, an overflow crowd packed a Masonic hall on Pike Street to hear the American Protective Association promise a nativist 'second grand army' against the Catholic Church.
- Seattle's Early Basketball Craze: Church Teams Pack the Y.M.C.A.
In 1893, just two years after basketball was invented, Seattle's church teams drew a standing-room-only crowd to the Y.M.C.A. for a lively night of hoops.
- The Women Who Would Remake Seattle, One Vote at a Time
King County’s temperance unions met in Fremont to report on missions and the White Shield Home — then nearly every woman in the room stood up for equal suffrage.
- A Christmas Auction That Fell Short—and a Mother Sent Home
Donations expected to bring $600 fetch only $158.40, but the Bureau of Associated Charities still outfits 100 families and buys a destitute mother a ticket to Kansas City.
- The Corset Clerk's Nightmare: A Beaver Dam Prank Gone Wrong
In a tale of mistaken identity and trembling knees, a young man’s attempt to escort a famous lecturer ends in panic when he is led to believe he must be measured for lingerie.