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89 stories matching willi
- The Wooden Revolver That Sprung Tom Blanck
A murderer awaiting appeal in the King County jail used a hand-carved fake gun to force his way past the night jailer, then vanished into the Black River woods as a sheriff's posse rushed south by special train.
- The Franklin Mine Dead Were Buried. Then the Miners Went Back Down.
A relief fund swells with donations from Eddyville millmen and Seattle readers as surviving miners reopen the levels that did not burn.
- The Floor Gives Way: Panic and Death at Seattle’s Morris Opera House
A grand opening night turns into a nightmare when the second-story floor of the newly converted theater collapses into the stables below, killing several and injuring dozens in one of the city's earliest major disasters.
- The Iron Hotel: Seattle's Jail Let Convicted Killers Wait Out the Law
A 1905 exposé inside the King County jail found convicted murderers lingering for years in a steel cage while appeals stalled, one prisoner fashioning a pistol from a shoe shank and escaping, and taxpayers footing the bill.
- Thirty-Seven Miners Died 150 Feet From Safety
An 1894 coroner's jury in Franklin, Washington, heard how a small fire in the Oregon Improvement Company's coal mine became a wall of smoke — and why the men who could have escaped stayed to fight it.
- A Wooden Gun and a Jailbreak: The Hunt for Thomas Blanck
Nine prisoners escaped from the King County jail. Only three have been recaptured. The notorious Thomas Blanck is still at large, armed men guard the roads, and a woman's description may be the key.
- The Mayor’s Gambit: Humes Defers to Council as Seattle Sweeps Away Its Gambling dens
In a rare moment of unified reform, the City Council has ordered the closure of all gambling houses and restricted saloons in the business district. Mayor Humes, citing legal ambiguity over the saloon ordinance but promising strict enforcement against lotteries, leaves the fate of Seattle’s vice industry to the police chief.
- A Hospital for the Poor, Not the Pauper House: Seattle General Prepares to Open
The Seattle General Hospital will open June 15 in the leased Avon house on Front Street, offering free treatment to the needy and a training school for nurses—backed by a women's auxiliary that has already raised funds through lunchrooms.
- Seattle’s 1895 Co-op Where 150 Unemployed Men Ate for 7 Cents a Day
At a Belltown barracks, unemployed single men pooled their wages, submitted to military-style rules and fed an average of 150 people daily for about 7 cents each.
- The Pony Express Ends: Lincoln Wins, But the South Sees War
As the Pony Express delivers the shocking news of Abraham Lincoln’s election to a nervous Sacramento, Olympia residents mark local weddings and watch their market prices hold steady.
- Yakima Democrats Nominate Full Slate at 1892 County Convention
Party faithful gathered in North Yakima to pick candidates, adopt a platform, and vow to clean up state government.
- A Jury Called the Franklin Mine Fire Arson. Thirty-Seven Miners Were Already Dead.
A coroner's jury found that someone deliberately set the fire that suffocated 37 workers in the Franklin mine. The only survivor described how one opened door and one stopped fan turned the gangway into a death trap.
- A Flag Over the Sick: Seattle's First General Hospital Opens Its Doors
A three-story wooden building on Front Street becomes a nonsectarian refuge for the poor and paying alike — raised by a woman's persistence and a city's donations, and dedicated under the Stars and Stripes.
- The 'Rich Deed' That Wasn't: Snohomish’s Wild Gold Rush Hoax and the Community’s Reality Check
A sensational tale of a legendary gold mine in Snohomish captivated locals, but the paper quickly pivots to a sobering assessment of the lumber industry's financial struggles and the region's agricultural potential.