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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1888 | 314 |
| 1889 | 785 |
| 1891 | 328 |
| 1892 | 1,308 |
| 1893 | 1,604 |
| 1894 | 1,246 |
| 1895 | 1,087 |
6,672 stories
- The $7 Million Gamble to Dig Seattle’s Canal
St. Louis capitalists arrive with plans for the Lake Washington canal and tide-flat fill, promising a transformed city—if Seattle secures the rights-of-way.
- St. Louis Money Was Ready—If Seattle Guaranteed the Canal
In 1895, a citizens' committee moved to raise a public subsidy for locks, bridges and right-of-way so a $7 million tide-flat and canal scheme could begin.
- The Smoke House Kid Comes to See His Dead Chief
A fugitive from a deadly Seattle jailbreak is caught on the street and taken to the morgue, where he stands over the body of the outlaw Tom Blanck.
- The Stabber Died Under an Alias at the County Hospital
Ten years after he stabbed a companion on the Lake Washington shore, a dying man at the county hospital was recognized as the same fugitive — still hiding behind the name George Rolsom.
- Seattle Packs a Theater to Mourn Frederick Douglass
A month after the great abolitionist's death, the city's Black community fills the Seattle Theater with music, prayer and eulogy — and hears him compared to Washington and Lincoln.
- The Railroad War Ends at a Theater Box
After three years of crossed tracks and near-violence, Seattle's rival railroads signed a truce that opened Jackson Street to the Great Northern terminal.
- A Widow’s Two Wills, a Husband’s Challenge, and a Fortune Tied to Seattle
Dr. Aaron Baldwin contests the estate of Lena Shay Baldwin, arguing that property left to her Seattle siblings was really his—and that the case belongs in Washington, D.C., not King County.
- A Squall Tore Through Seattle—and a Husband Saved His Wife from the Bay
A sudden storm knocked out telegraph and telephone wires, smashed windows, flipped wagons, ditched a shingle train, and nearly drowned a mill worker and his Native wife in Elliott Bay.
- Seattle Tried to Garden Its Way Out of Unemployment
At a Chamber of Commerce meeting, civic leaders pledged vacant land, tools and seed so jobless families could grow vegetables through the winter, borrowing a relief plan from Detroit.
- Seattle's Waterfront Was Up for Grabs — and Everyone Filed a Claim
With the tide-land plats at last filed, hundreds of buyers have staked overlapping claims across Elliott Bay, and officials are predicting years of litigation over who really owns the shore.
- The Cable Company Wanted More Time. Yesler Avenue Wanted Its Double Track.
In 1895, Seattle’s aldermen weighed whether to give a struggling street railway more time to double-track Yesler Avenue—or force it to honor the franchise the neighborhood had bought into.
- King County Hires Outside Auditors to Chase 'Dark Hints' in the Treasury
Commissioners order a four-year examination of the treasurer's books, over the protest of the prosecuting attorney who wanted his own expert on the committee.
- The Seattle Barber Who Became a Spy
A letter to the editor recalls John Waller, a Black Seattle barber and lawyer, now sentenced to twenty years by a French court-martial as a spy for the Hovas.
- He Loved Her Too Much to Marry Her
Adam Gehm, a Bavarian logger working in Carbonado, shot himself in a Seattle lodging house after confessing to a friend that illness left him unable to provide for the woman he loved. He had tried once before.
- A Stranger's Bullet Leaves Fraser Dying—and Page Asking Seattle for a Fair Shake
Shot and dying, Fraser made his will and gave a statement to prosecutors while the accused gunman, held in the county jail, denied being a gambler or a tough and pleaded for a square hearing.
- A Horse Theft Led Police to a Stolen Child
For two years Mary Eckelbery searched for the daughter taken from her. A Puyallup horse-theft arrest, a sheriff's hunch, and a little girl called 'Emma' finally brought Annie Florence Dawson home.
- A Stranger, a Pistol, and No Motive: The Unsolved Shooting of Harry Fraser
Seattle mourners fill a chapel for Harry J. Fraser as the man accused of killing him sits in the county jail—and no one can explain why the shot was fired.
- 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.
- Seattle Nearly Buys Its Canal, One Subscription at a Time
With $21,181 left to raise, the $500,000 Lake Washington Waterway fund is within reach — bankrolled by saloon keepers, a fireman and a hospital sister's $150.
- The Mayor Clears the Room: Phelps Fires a Fire Commissioner and Stares Down a Coup
When Fire Commissioner Masel and two allies tried to break Chief Allen on a trumped-up morals charge, Mayor Phelps suspended Masel for not being a freeholder — and the three commissioners walked out into the night.
- Seattle’s Half-Million-Dollar Canal Fund Ran Short—and the Committee Wanted Locals to Finish It
Boosters behind the Seattle and Lake Washington Waterway had raised nearly $500,000 in citizens’ subscriptions. With outside money slow to arrive, the committee urged Seattleites to double their pledges and close the tide-flat canal fund by Saturday.
- A Million-Dollar Land Grab and the Wife Left Behind
Abandoned for ten years in Pennsylvania, Mrs. J. E. Jordan comes to Seattle's superior court to stop her husband from deeding away the community's real estate to a medicine company — and names the men who helped him do it.
- Before the Tide Lands Sold, Seattle Had to Erase Its Own Streets
Property owners rushed the City Council to vacate old street lines across Elliott Bay tide lands before a May 13 purchase deadline—or risk tangled titles and lost waterfront.
- The Board of Health Weighed Closing Every School in Seattle
Scarlet fever was moving through the city's classrooms in May 1895, and the men who ran public health argued over whether to send thousands of children home for six weeks — and whether parents could be trusted to report the sickness at all.
- A Waterfront War Over Who Ships the Sailors
Seattle boarding-house men and the Sailors' Union trade threats, beatings and a Winchester rifle in a fight for control of the city's crew-hiring trade.