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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1872 | 1 |
| 1876 | 4 |
| 1877 | 8 |
| 1878 | 4 |
| 1883 | 7 |
| 1884 | 2 |
| 1885 | 2 |
| 1886 | 3 |
| 1887 | 1 |
| 1888 | 4 |
| 1889 | 11 |
| 1890 | 1 |
| 1891 | 2 |
| 1892 | 6 |
| 1893 | 7 |
| 1894 | 7 |
| 1895 | 4 |
| 1899 | 4 |
| 1903 | 1 |
| 1904 | 9 |
| 1905 | 1 |
| 1908 | 3 |
| 1909 | 4 |
| 1915 | 1 |
| 1916 | 3 |
| 1924 | 1 |
101 stories matching intersect
- The Newspaper Editor and the Political Bruiser
A brutal street assault in Olympia reveals the volatile intersection of frontier politics and an independent press.
- Violence in the Blue Front Saloon
A jealous confrontation over a woman leads to a stabbing in Seattle's historic Whitechapel district, highlighting the dangerous intersections of social life in the 1890s.
- The Battle for Lake Union: A War of Words Over Seattle’s First Public Road
In May 1877, a bitter public feud erupted between the newly appointed Supervisor of Road District No. 1 and a group of influential local voters over the legal authority to build a road along the west shore of Lake Union.
- The Siege of Seattle: When the City Huddled Behind Timber Walls
A newly unearthed account from pioneer A.A. Denny details the terrifying winter of 1856, when settlers built fortified blockhouses at key intersections and waited for an Indian attack that never came.
- Whose Land Is It? Seattle Takes On the Northern Pacific Railroad
The president of the Northern Pacific comes to the Chamber of Commerce to argue his company needs the public lands as collateral — and a furious editorial fires back that the city's whole future is on the line.
- The Great Wenatchee Maze: Why You Can’t Find Your Own House
A scathing editorial on July 17, 1905, lambasts the city’s chaotic street naming and lack of house numbers, calling it a 'conundrum' that leaves visitors and locals equally lost.
- The Mayor Won't Sign, the Railroad Can't Build, and a Saloonkeeper Sues the Town
Newport's council spends a long evening tangled in street vacations for the Idaho & Washington Northern, unsafe crossings, a disputed plat of survey monuments — and trades a lawsuit for a liquor license.
- Seattle’s First Great Street: How Denny Hill Became Front Street
In March 1877, the city is racing to finish the brutal grading of Front Street, transforming a muddy slope into Seattle’s first grand thoroughfare.
- The Great Fill: Seattle’s First Major Land Reclamation and the Fight for White Labor
In October 1876, workers are frantically raising Front Street to save it from the Duwamish River. The local press frames this massive public works project not just as engineering, but as a moral victory for 'white labor' over cheap Chinese competition.
- The Ten-Foot Map That Would Sewer Olympia
In 1891, an engineer drew a room-sized map and planned a drainage system for a city of 20,000—if the council could get around the Seventh Street tunnel.
- The Vanishing Sidewalks: How Seattle’s Council Cleared the Streets of 'Obstructions'
In a bold move to modernize downtown, the City Council ordered the immediate removal of all fruit stands, bootblack benches, and candy vendors from the city's busiest thoroughfares. The result? A clash between civic order and the livelihoods of informal street merchants.
- Kennewick Bargained for Brighter Streets—and a Ten-Year Utility Deal
In December 1916, Pacific Power Light proposed replacing Kennewick’s carbon arc lamps with hydrogen lamps, but council members wanted guarantees that new technology and future rate cuts would reach the city.
- 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.
- Northport Wants to Know Who Moved Its Road
A legislative road award to Northport was rerouted through Colville, and the Northport Republican lays the blame on a surveyor's report and county commissioners.
- Newport’s Railroad Future Takes Shape in a $150,000 Yard
The Idaho & Washington Northern Railroad unveils plans for terminal yards, depots, switches and a loop through old and new Newport—and west-side farmers lobby for the line down the Calispel valley.
- The Streetcar Company That Asked Olympia for Land—and Promised the Moon by July 4
In 1892, the Olympia Light & Power Company pitched an electric railway to Tumwater as a bargain for landowners: donate a strip or an acre, and watch city-limit land double in value. The trust deed gave them until Independence Day to make it real.
- The Man Who Couldn't Be Named: A Mysterious Suicide on Pike Street
In the early hours of a Seattle morning in 1902, a barkeeper discovers a stranger dead in his room with no ID and a note addressed to 'Joe.' The city is left with a body, a mystery, and a morphine bottle.
- The Night Seattle Fought Over Its Streetlights
A special meeting of the Board of Aldermen turns into a tense negotiation with the Union Electric Company over the terms, safeguards and cost of lighting the city.
- A Breath of Fire-Damp Killed Twenty-Three Blue Canyon Miners
A coal-mine explosion near Lake Whatcom wiped out nearly an entire shift just before it was due to change, leaving only two survivors to tell what happened underground.
- Spokane Dressed for a Railroad King—and Waited Until Midnight
Spokane Falls spent a week building arches and hanging evergreens for Henry Villard's Northern Pacific excursion, but delayed trains turned the grand reception into a series of after-dark whistle-stops—and Ulysses S. Grant drew the crowd that the railroad had promised.
- The State Draws a Line Along Seattle’s Waterfront
In 1896, Olympia fixed the harbor boundary from West Seattle to Meadow Point, mapped new Duwamish and Salmon Bay waterways, and cleared the way to sell tide lands.
- Telescoped at the Crossing: A Grant Street Horror
When a Northern Pacific freight train plowed into an electric streetcar on May 20, 1909, one man died and dozens were mangled in the icy water below. The crash exposed dangerous speeds and negligent watchmen at a city intersection that remains vital today.
- Spokane Prepares to Welcome the Northern Pacific’s Last-Spike Excursion
In September 1883, Spokane Falls planned arches, speeches and a day of civic pageantry to greet President Henry Villard and the railroad party opening the transcontinental line.
- The Great Front Street Fraud: City Council Exposes Fake Petition for Cable Car
In a stunning display of civic integrity, Seattle’s Common Council unmasks a fraudulent petition designed to grant a monopoly cable car franchise, revealing that applicants forged signatures and misrepresented property frontage.
- Seattle's $100,000 Night: The Armory Meeting That Sold the Ship Canal
Boosters packed the Armory in 1895 and pledged a fortune for locks and bridges on a Lake Washington canal—payable only after a ship made the passage from Elliott Bay.