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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1871 | 11 |
| 1872 | 140 |
| 1876 | 153 |
| 1877 | 124 |
| 1878 | 248 |
| 1879 | 15 |
| 1880 | 83 |
774 stories
- A Heartbreaking Plea for a 'Stout' Boy
A desperate local advertisement seeks a home for an eight-year-old child in exchange for farm labor in the late 1870s.
- The Price of Print: A Pioneer Newspaper’s Inventory Liquidation
A rare glimpse into the mechanics of 1878 journalism as a Seattle printer liquidates his entire shop, signaling the volatile life of local presses.
- The Price of Panic: Losing the Farm to the Sheriff
After a grueling economic downturn, a King County family faces the auction block as court-ordered sales sweep Seattle.
- Sheriff's Auction: King County Land Sold to Settle a Debt
A 1878 legal notice reveals a grim snapshot of early King County land struggles, as a riverside homestead goes to auction to satisfy a debt.
- The Glass Master of Occidental Square
A traveling exhibition of delicate glass artistry offers a whimsical distraction to 1870s Seattleites.
- The Ghost Ship in the Harbor: A Legal Drama of Unpaid Labor
A US Marshal’s notice reveals the desperate struggle for wages aboard the vessel 'Clipper,' abandoned in the waters of Puget Sound in 1880.
- Seattle’s First Steam Fire Engine
Facing a growing city's vulnerability, Seattle’s leadership authorized a massive expenditure in 1878 to modernize the local fire brigade.
- The Search for Fruitful Soil in the Seattle Basin
A pioneer orchardist shares a nineteen-year struggle to master the stubborn, clay-heavy soils of the Duwamish Valley and the Puget Sound region.
- The Iron-Spoke Innovation of 1876
A radical new design in carriage wheels promises a smoother, sturdier ride for Seattle’s muddy, nascent streets.
- Gambling over God: A Seattle Moral Crisis in 1878
A local editor wrestles with a report claiming Seattle's 'cosmopolitan' nature had left its churches empty while its poker tables stayed crowded.
- The Great Greenback Tug-of-War
A Seattle reader squares off against national editors over the power of the government to define the value of money itself.
- The Promised Land of Eastern Washington
A look at the thriving agricultural output of the territory's interior as a draw for new settlers.
- The Miracle Cure-Alls of 1870s Seattle
Before modern medicine, newspaper columns were filled with aggressive marketing for 'Pain Eradicators' and 'Radical Cures' that promised to fix everything from catarrh to death itself.
- The Price of Printing: A 19th Century Fight Against 'Cheap John' Contracting
An editorial from the 1873 Seattle Dispatch excoriates the municipal habit of awarding city printing contracts to the lowest bidder, arguing it degrades the press and serves only the interests of 'ward demagogues.'
- The Seattle Dream Home of 1872
A real estate listing offers a glimpse of modest, mid-19th-century frontier living near the original Seattle townsite.
- The City’s Coldest Tea: A Prohibition-Era Poke at Seattle’s Saloon Culture
A satirical notice from 1871 captures the tongue-in-cheek public grumbling that followed the closure of a beloved watering hole.
- The Great 'Old Junction' Saloon Scandal of 1871
When the city's most beloved watering hole shut its doors, 10,000 disgruntled Seattleites felt the thirst.
- The Great Seattle Heatwave of 1876: Sunstroke Claims Lives as City Swelters
While the nation fixates on Custer’s Last Stand and political deadlocks in Washington D.C., Seattle is locked in a silent, deadly battle against an unrelenting July heatwave that is proving fatal to its residents.
- The Sheriff’s Hammer: A King County Farm Sold for Debt in the Heart of Seattle
In August 1875, the King County Sheriff stood on the courthouse steps to auction off a stranger's land to satisfy a judgment, turning the nascent town's civic center into a marketplace for foreclosures.
- The Divorce of a Pioneer: A Legal Battle in King County
In the early days of Seattle, legal proceedings were public record. This summons reveals the gritty reality of marriage dissolution in 1876, where 'abandonment' was a grounds for divorce and the courts were one of the few places to settle domestic disputes.
- Sunday Refreshments at the Yesler Pleasure Garden
A look at the popular 1870s recreational spot where Seattle residents found relief, music, and ice cream on their days off.
- The Crossing at Black River
In 1877, King County sought bids for a new bridge, marking a quiet moment of infrastructure expansion in a landscape that would soon be permanently altered by river rerouting.
- Spanning the Black River
As Seattle grew in 1877, the County Commissioners sought to replace a private ferry with a permanent crossing over the now-vanished Black River.
- The Unsettled Estate on the Edge of Lake Union
A legal notice from 1877 reveals the struggle of a widow attempting to settle a deceased spouse's debts by liquidating land near the wild, undeveloped frontier of Seattle's Lake Union.
- The Closing of a Pressroom Era
As the Seattle economy shifts, a local printer liquidates his entire inventory, marking the end of a small-scale business in a growing territory.