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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1888 | 27 |
| 1889 | 51 |
| 1891 | 28 |
| 1892 | 206 |
| 1893 | 224 |
| 1894 | 201 |
| 1895 | 161 |
898 stories
- The Collapse of the Merchants' National Bank
Tacoma’s banking elite face a ruinous assessment as the city’s failed financial institutions attempt to settle their debts.
- Discord Over Puyallup Tribal Land Sales
Conflicting signatures and disputed authority stir tensions among the Puyallup tribe as federal commissioners push for land sales.
- The Collapse of Tacoma's Merchants' National Bank
As the bank's receiver publishes a grim accounting of assets, depositors learn that their savings are being liquidated to cover loans made to the institution's own directors.
- The Real Estate Titan Who Fell to Earth
Allen C. Mason, the man who built the Tacoma boom, sees his mortgage empire collapse under the weight of taxes and hard times.
- The Boodle Battle: Political Corruption and Vagrancy in Tacoma
As local politicians fight for control of city offices, Tacoma's Populists take aim at 'boodlers' and the importation of vagrants to influence local elections.
- Tacoma’s Wealthy Elite Demand End to Public Schools
A committee from the Chamber of Commerce, led by industrialist Nelson Bennett, argues that public education is a wasteful burden on taxpayers and poor citizens.
- The Bank Failure Vendetta
After his bank deposits evaporated, an enraged depositor stalked a banker to Tacoma, bringing a revolver and a sense of ruinous betrayal.
- The Puyallup Protest Against Land Commissions
Indigenous leaders unite to condemn fraud, bribery, and intimidation by federal land commissioners.
- The Guard Mutinied Over a Railroad Strike
A 1894 court of inquiry found Tacoma’s Company G guilty of mutiny, cashiered a captain who surrendered to strikers at Sprague, and exposed a forged strike-edition letter.
- The Battle for the Waterfront
Tacoma and Seattle clash with the state over who owns the land between the high tide line and the harbor.
- The Booster Who Sold a Forest by the Lot
A Tacoma real-estate promoter turned a virgin forest into a one-day $135,000 land rush—then got lost in the woods and stumbled on a surveyor’s stake from his own subdivision.
- The Tacoma Gold Rush That Was Salted With Quicksilver
A mining journal exposes how placer claims on Tacoma school land turned a public trust into a speculative jackpot—complete with imported gold, alleged bribery, and a land office that kept saying yes.
- A Dismissed Complaint, Then a Woodshed Ambush in Tacoma
Maggie Kornder had charged Mike Pfeifle with threatening her. A judge let the case go; days later, the rejected suitor hid in her employer's woodshed and shot her before turning the gun on himself.
- The Ledger Went Into the Furnace
A Tacoma courtroom heard how 94 company books were burned on orders from the assignee—while stockholders testified that minutes were falsified and $42,000 had vanished.
- Point Defiance Dynamite Disaster
A workplace explosion at Point Defiance Park leaves one man dead and several others gravely injured.
- Tacoma Prepares for Anti-Chinese Agitation
Hostility toward Chinese merchants and laborers persists in Tacoma as organizers call for a mass meeting at the foot of Tenth Street.
- Puyallup Tribe Reclaims Agency Over Their Land
Defying federal 'red tape' and the Wilson Bill, the Puyallup Tribe organizes their own land company to handle railroad right-of-way construction on their own terms.
- The Fight Over Chinese Immigration
Tensions mount as authorities in Puget Sound and Portland scramble to manage the arrival of Chinese travelers and the enforcement of the Geary Act.
- The Unsolved Disappearance of Peter Stanup
Community anxiety grows in Tacoma over the vanishing of a prominent Puyallup leader, with theories of foul play and political suppression circulating.
- Legal Resistance to Deportation
Attorney Marshall K. Snell challenges the illegal detention of three Chinese merchants by federal authorities in Tacoma.
- The Struggle for the Puyallup Mission
Puyallup tribal members resist government-imposed church leadership.
- The 'Rat' Ledger and the Union Strike
After the Tacoma Ledger arbitrarily cut printers' wages by 30 percent, the labor union responded by boycotting the paper and launching a rival daily.
- The Tacoma Wharfage War
A passenger steamship line faces a bitter blockade after refusing to inflate prices to protect Northern Pacific rail interests.
- The Interior Secretary Came to See Whether the Puyallups Could Manage Their Own Land. He Left Surprised.
John W. Noble toured the Puyallup reservation's farms ahead of opening it to sale — and found the people he had been told could not handle their affairs running them well.
- Tacoma's Labor Boycott: Business Men Forced to Meet in a Basement as Tensions Escalate
A planned meeting of business men to address the Trades Council's boycott of the Ledger newspaper is postponed after the Commercial Club refuses its rooms. Undeterred, a group meets in a basement, but the Trades Council dismisses it as meaningless. The city remains on edge as labor and business collide.