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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1903 | 21 |
| 1904 | 982 |
| 1907 | 7 |
| 1909 | 903 |
1,913 stories
- Minors Found Inside Tacoma’s Notorious 'Vile Resorts'
A legal battle to shutter saloons and dance halls reveals that children were regularly witnessing and participating in the city's 'wide open' nightlife.
- Sewage Crisis Plagues Tacoma's East Side
The filling of tide flats has caused a sewer to back up, creating a public health nightmare for hundreds of factory workers.
- An Investigation into the Filth at Clover Creek
A reporter takes a trip to the Parkland outskirts to document the raw sewage, pigsties, and animal waste contaminating the city's water source.
- The Unfiltered Reality of Tacoma’s Water
An exposé reveals that the city's water supply flume runs through backyards and cesspools, gathering filth before reaching the tap.
- The Great Tacoma Freeze of 1909
A record-breaking cold wave and gale-force winds rattle the city, freezing pipes and sending houseboats adrift.
- Shocking Lawsuit Filed Over Faulty Electrical Socket
A local mother sues for $20,045 after her six-year-old son was paralyzed by an electrical jolt from a home light fixture.
- City Wins Long Battle Over Northern Pacific Land
Tacoma secures major property concessions worth half a million dollars after a two-year fight with the railroad.
- Grand Jury Digs Into the Restricted District
A secret investigation into local vice and government corruption begins, with former inhabitants of Tacoma's restricted district called to testify.
- Mystery Abduction in Ballard Grading Camp
A young man was dragged from his tent by two men posing as officers, leaving his family to fear he was shanghaied for a fishing crew.
- The Disappearing Developer
A local real estate operator vanishes, leaving behind a trail of dishonored checks, uncompleted houses, and angry creditors across Tacoma.
- A Dead Unmarried Worker Was Worth Nothing—Until This Law
Washington's legislature finally let dependent parents and siblings sue when a provider was killed on the job, ending a rule that made unmarried workers cheaper to kill than to maim.
- Shot by a Rejected Lover, Mabel Thorp Is Mending at St. Joseph's
Two days after Ernest Grant shot her and then drank acid to kill himself, the young Tacoma woman is healing fast — the bullet wound, the paper reports, is nearly closed, but the shock is another matter.
- Mourned as Dead, He Came Home From Australia
C. W. Ellsworth vanished from Everett last September. His wife and little daughter on a ranch near Machias had given him up for dead — until he walked back in, with a story about a waterfront saloon, a drugged drink and a schooner bound for the Antipodes.
- One Punch in a Tacoma Saloon, and Three Days Later a Man Was Dead
A Seattle commercial traveler needled a dog, then a bartender. He walked the streets with a fractured skull for three days before he finally asked for a hospital — and his last coherent claim was that he'd been sandbagged.
- He Kept a $5,000 Reward Posted for His Missing Wife. Then He Drank Himself to Death.
Christine Nelson stepped into a New York hotel room in October and was never seen again. Her husband spent a fortune and two trips East searching — and died this morning at St. Joseph's.
- Smelter Workers Robbed at Gunpoint
Nine men and one woman were held up by masked bandits near the Tacoma Smelter on payday night, but clever victims managed to hide their cash.
- Tacoma’s Theater Safety Crisis
Following the horrific Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago, local inspectors scramble to identify hazards in Tacoma’s aging entertainment venues.
- The Professor and the Stewardess
A Vashon Island college professor was physically confronted on a steamer by a former employee over accusations of theft.
- A Steep Price for a Ten-Cent Robbery
A cumulative sentence law in Washington State leads to a twenty-year prison sentence for a man who robbed a bridge pedestrian of only a dime.
- Fireworks Panic at Wright Park
A lack of basic safety measures at Tacoma's Fourth of July celebration nearly leads to a deadly stampede.
- Old Town Waterfront Sabotaged
A new stevedoring scow is destroyed in a midnight explosion as labor tensions simmer on the Tacoma docks.
- The Shadowy Resort on the Reservation
Neighbors allege a dance hall and illicit bar near Bay Street are a hub for vice, liquor sales to minors, and persistent noise, while city officials look the other way.
- The Slugger Monopoly of Pacific Avenue
A local slot machine monopolist deploys hired thugs to enforce his trade, leading to a public street fight and a day in court.
- The 'Messiah' of North Tacoma
After his arrest for assault, police uncovered a stash of love letters from women across the country who believed Joshua Klein was a spiritual master.
- Fatal Surge on Pacific Avenue
High-voltage electricity crosses wires at a construction site, claiming the lives of two local workers and endangering several others.