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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1903 | 1,264 |
| 1904 | 106 |
1,370 stories
- The Prescott Elopement
After two young lovers fled their homes to escape parental disapproval, a desperate search ends with a change of heart and a marriage license.
- The Battle for Walla Walla’s Poundmaster
A deposed city official fights to regain his post, challenging the legality of his successor's appointment in Superior Court.
- The Whitman College Students' Circus
A grand student-led performance in Armory Hall brings trained elephants, trapeze artists, and a merry band of clowns to Walla Walla.
- A State Board Told Dentists to Sign Away Their Ads — One Seattle Man Refused
At the 1903 licensing exams in Tacoma, Washington's dental examiners demanded applicants sign a code-of-ethics contract before they could sit down. Edwin J. Brown of Seattle said no — and the whole profession waited to see whether he'd be barred from practice.
- Portland Draws a Line in the Grocery Trade — and Asks Why Walla Walla Has No Streetcars
A visiting wholesale grocer says Seattle and Tacoma will not be allowed to poach the interior trade without a struggle, then marvels at five years of brick blocks — and at a city still without a single trolley line.
- The Engineer, the River, and the Farmers Who Objected
A Northwestern Gas and Electric engineer stops in Walla Walla to inspect survey routes for a new power plant on the Walla Walla River — but riverside farmers are already resisting the chosen paths.
- A Pullman Elopement, Interrupted by Long Distance
A young couple marries in Colfax, then calls home to ask forgiveness. The bride's mother refuses to believe it and vows never to forgive them.
- Outweighed Eighteen Pounds a Man, Whitman Nearly Stunned Pullman
A 75-yard touchdown run by Elmo Reser kept the Missionaries in it until the final fifteen seconds, when the Aggies' sheer weight finally told, 18 to 6.
- A Grandmother's Bonds: Walla Walla Man Finds a $75,000 Inheritance After 20 Years
E. L. Smalley learns he is one of five heirs to $75,000 in government bonds and 80 acres near Quincy, Illinois—an estate that has waited two decades in chancery court for missing family to be found.
- The Panther, the Mail Route and the Ox Team: A Frontier Preacher's Long Road to Walla Walla
Rev. A. W. Sweeney, who carried the U.S. mail alone through the Arkansas wilds at eight years old and crossed the plains by ox team to the gold camps, died this morning at his son's house in Walla Walla at 76.
- A White-Haired Husband's Thousand-Mile Hunt for the Wife Who Vanished
Since his wife eloped with another man last August, J. B. Small has crisscrossed the country and now reaches Seattle with nothing but a clue and a broken heart.
- Washington's Boom Was So Furious It Predicted a Million People by 1910
A 1903 state report counted 241,584 new residents in three years, put Everett's growth at 144 percent, and projected a population of 1,347,067 within seven years.
- Walla Walla's Farmers Needed a Market—and the City Needed Them Off the Streets
In 1903, farmers and downtown businessmen pushed for a central public market where produce, wood and hay could be sold and weighed—instead of hawked from wagons on back streets.
- The Best Horseman in the State, Accused of Leading a Horse-Thieving Ring
A well-known Walla Walla boy working as a hospital cook in Seattle is arrested and hauled to North Yakima, charged as the ringleader of a fifteen-to-twenty-man gang of horse thieves.
- The Bureaucratic Standoff Over Yakima Water
State Land Commissioner S. A. Calvert returns from D.C. after hitting a wall with the Interior Department over irrigation rights.
- Spokane County Finds Eastern Investors Hungry for Western Bonds
A local treasurer successfully refinances county debt in Chicago, signaling a shift in how Western infrastructure was financed at the turn of the century.
- The Maze of the Snake River Hills
Early road surveys were so poorly planned that settlers were forced to build their own paths, leading to a tangled web of private property and impassable public routes.
- The Narrow Gauge Line Passes to New Ownership
A deed filed in Walla Walla marks the transfer of the historic Dixie line from the O.R. & N. Company to a local outfit.
- The Unsettled Affairs of Chris Hilbrick
After years of court appearances, arson accusations, and mental health crises, a Walla Walla man has his estate placed under guardianship.
- The Subdivision of the Boyer Ranch
A significant 800-acre land deal signals shifting ownership in the Walla Walla valley.
- A New Orchard Plague
As fruit inspectors prepare for their annual conference in Pullman, officials sound the alarm over a disease imported from the Orient on steamships.
- The Fight Over Walla Walla's Subterranean Waters
A legal assessment regarding the city's rights to the Thomas Springs sheds light on early municipal water struggles.
- A Suspected Arson Fire Wiped Out a Farm's Machinery North of Prescott
The Grote brothers saved only a wagon and some header boxes after $4,000 in equipment burned on the Preston farm.
- The Ghost of a Forger
A clever swindler slips out of Walla Walla after passing forged postal money orders, leaving authorities empty-handed.
- Tragedy in the Cascades
A well-known Seattle mining man perishes alone in a mountain cabin after a difficult winter journey.