Research the archive
Narrow 27,002 newspaper stories by words, years, place, newspaper and subject. See when and where they ran, then download what you find.
Put a phrase in quotes ("rent strike") or leave a word out with a minus (strike -baseball). Old scans misspell names, so when little is found, near-spellings are offered.
Refine1 on
Show the numbers
| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1888 | 421 |
| 1889 | 1,084 |
| 1891 | 492 |
| 1892 | 2,259 |
| 1893 | 2,699 |
| 1894 | 2,015 |
| 1895 | 1,830 |
10,800 stories
- Makah Sealers Face Forfeiture
Federal authorities move to seize two schooners owned by Makah sealers for violating international sealing regulations off Cape Flattery.
- The Local Press and the Mob
A critique of Washington newspapers that refused to take a hard moral stand against lynch law.
- When the Local Paper Cheers the Mob
A governor's push to prosecute the Colfax vigilantes draws a shocking defense from Whitman County newspapers—and a sharp rebuke from The Olympian.
- Tacoma’s Million-Dollar Water Scandal
Citizens are fighting to repudiate a massive bond issue for a municipal water plant they claim is worth only a fraction of the cost.
- The Coxey Army Marches West
A radical movement of the unemployed faces hostility from the press as it turns its sights toward the Pacific Coast.
- Tacoma's $1.75 Million Water Deal Went Bad—and Taxpayers Were Just Catching On
A special dispatch from Tacoma reports that the city's purchase of the old water plant was sold on a false promise of mountain water, while a new bidder offers a cheaper gravity system.
- The Tragic Death of a Devoted Teacher
A Rainier School teacher passes away after a heroic, fatal attempt to shield her students from a schoolroom fire.
- The Brother vs. Brother Tragedy
A Seattle jury delivers a verdict in a fatal downtown shooting between two brothers.
- The Collapse of a Seattle Dynasty
Facing mounting debt, the city’s founding family reorganizes its sprawling land and streetcar empire under a new corporate umbrella.
- The Pullman Strike Reaches Seattle
Striking railroad workers and their sympathizers gather at the depots as a tense national labor dispute ripples through the city.
- The Asylum Poisoning Scandal
A state mental hospital is rocked by accusations that a patient was murdered, triggering a battle between local officials and an Eastern chemist.
- James J. Hill's Railroad Ultimatum to Seattle
The Great Northern president tells Seattle's council he will build freight and passenger terminals 'right away'—if the city grants the track franchises he wants across the tide flats and South Third.
- The Soldiers Who Refused to Ride With Scabs
During the Pullman strike, a Washington National Guard company mutinied rather than travel on a train crewed by non-union men—and the colonel who disarmed them said the whole unit should be disbanded.
- The License Collector Caught in His Own Trap
E. W. Bates shook down Lake Washington resorts, tried to pin the money on his boss, and was fired and arrested in the same afternoon.
- Seattle’s fire chief indicted for fraud — and he saw it coming
A federal grand jury in Tacoma charges Chief Albert B. Hunt; a deputy marshal arrests him at Seattle headquarters, then trails him through town on a hunt for a bondsman.
- ‘Incipient Treason’: Judge Hanford Sentences the Spokane Strikers
Seven men are jailed for contempt after a mob derails trains and seizes a roundhouse during the 1894 railroad strike. The federal judge calls it insurrection.
- The National Guard Hunts Its Own After the Railroad Strike
Washington's adjutant general orders investigations into guardsmen accused of union sympathies, disobedience, and damage to railroad property during the 1894 strike.
- The General, the Strikers, and the Company That Wouldn't Ride With a Scab Crew
Brig. Gen. A. V. Curry explains why he handed the rifles back to Spokane's Company G after its men refused to travel with a substitute crew — and why he thought the colonel who disarmed them had acted too hastily.
- He Walked Out of the House and Into a Whirlpool of Whispers
A well-liked Spokane County farmer vanishes near Mica, and forty neighbors turn the countryside upside down hunting for him — but the deeper they dig, the stranger the trail becomes.
- A Coal Company's Strikebreaker Gambit in Roslyn
A Northern Pacific manager admits the company is importing Black miners from the East to break the Roslyn coal strike—and hints the miners' refusal of a pay cut left him no choice.
- The Murder in the Bunkhouse North of Auburn
A young Japanese labor contractor was beaten and killed as he slept in a cabin on J.W. Nails's farm; a roommate was jailed while blood trails, a loaded musket and an opium pipe deepened the mystery.
- The Bridge Swung, and Fifteen Loaded Cars Went Down
A bridge collapse near Walla Walla sent a tender, fifteen freight cars and a caboose into a ravine, leaving three railroad men badly injured and one likely to lose an arm.
- A Switch Thrown in the Dark: The Plot to Wreck the Portland Train
Someone opened a Northern Pacific switch on a waterfront trestle just before the night express from Seattle came through — and a quick-thinking crew stopped a hundred passengers short of the deep water.
- Rockefeller's Land Company Comes to Town—and Everett Smells a Deal
A packed council chamber hears that John D. Rockefeller now controls the Everett Land Company, that the mills may run full, and that the county seat fight is on.
- Roslyn Miners End a Three-Month Strike — and Return to the Pits at a 20 Percent Cut
After a bitter walkout against the Northern Pacific Coal Company, the miners of Roslyn vote almost unanimously to accept reduced wages and go back to work — a surrender that some say was hastened when a handful of Black miners from Franklin were brought in to take their places.