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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1888 | 421 |
| 1889 | 1,084 |
| 1891 | 492 |
| 1892 | 2,259 |
| 1893 | 2,699 |
| 1894 | 2,015 |
| 1895 | 1,830 |
10,800 stories
- The Silver Fight Waiting Inside Spokane’s Republican Convention
Nine Supreme Court hopefuls, three congressional candidates, and a free-silver bloc turn Washington’s 1894 state convention into a backroom brawl before it even opens.
- The Silver Fight That Split Washington's Republicans
A packed Spokane convention picked judges and congressmen, then turned on a single plank: whether the party would demand free silver.
- Seattle’s Yesler Donation Claim Goes on the Auction Block
An administrator petitions to carve 86 lots out of Sarah B. Yesler’s donation claim to settle an estate drowning in debt and taxes.
- Two Steamers Saluted Off Cape Flattery—Then Vanished Into the Storm
A schooner captain’s account places the missing Keweenaw and Montserrat together off Washington’s coast on a night of monstrous seas, just before both were lost.
- They Refused the Money and the Land
In 1895, the Wenatchee Indians turned down a $36,000 payment and allotments, fearing it would erase their claim to a promised Mission Creek reservation.
- Cheaper to Ship Wheat to Liverpool Than to Seattle: An Inland Empire Farmer's Case Against the Railroads
A Whitman County grower tells the Post-Intelligencer that Palouse wheat can be raised for about 30 cents a bushel — and sent 16,000 miles to England for less than the railroad charges to haul it 400 miles to the Sound.
- They Climbed Rainier First—and Slept in a Sulphur-Scented Ice Cave
In 1870, Hazard Stevens and P. B. Van Trump reached Mount Rainier's summit after a brutal 10½-hour climb, then spent a freezing night beside volcanic steam vents.
- Seattle's $3 Million Steel Dream on Salmon Bay
A new blast furnace and steel works promised thousands of jobs, a freight-car plant, and 23,000 new residents—if the boosters were to be believed.
- Warm Rain Triggers Slides and Floods Across Puget Sound
A winter warm spell melts mountain snow, sending mudslides across the Great Northern line and flooding the Skagit Delta, stranding passengers and threatening crops with salt water.
- The Tide Lands Plat: A Waterfront Laid Out for Sale
State appraisers file the plat for the Tacoma tide lands, opening 600 acres of shore and mud flats to sale—unless upland owners claim them first.
- Seven Votes Decide the Sheriff: Judge Langley Tosses Out Fraud Charges and Seats Van de Vanter
After a six-week ballot-by-ballot recount, a Seattle judge ruled that clumsy election officers could not disfranchise King County voters—and confirmed the Republican sheriff by a seven-vote margin.
- A $10,000 Railroad Check and a Whispering Campaign in Olympia
In 1895, Washington's legislature gathered to choose a U.S. senator, and the Seattle press heard that the Southern Pacific had put $10,000 behind one candidate.
- A Mother, a Child, and a Cold Shack Off Albert Street
A police officer's dollar leads Superintendent Gilmer to a family with no food, no furniture and no shoes—and to a quiet rescue before the county takes over.
- The Railroads Wanted a Senator, and They Worked Olympia to Get Him
A Republican paper accuses John L. Wilson of backing a railroad-friendly bill while transcontinental lines quietly lobby the legislature to send him to the U.S. Senate — and Tacoma's A.P.A. splits over the fight.
- Gunfire Before Midnight: The Bratton Tragedy in Tacoma
Isaac Henry Bratton, 41, shot his wife and then himself at their Tacoma home. The couple had come from Missouri two years earlier and left three children.
- The 17,000-Horsepower Plan to Electrify Seattle
Engineers proposed an 800-foot steel pipe, a tunnel through basalt, and a 23-mile copper line to turn Snoqualmie Falls into the city’s power source.
- The Mattress They Took From the Children
A teamster's hospital stay turned a $136 loan into a chattel-mortgage seizure—and a lawsuit over the mattress his children slept on.
- The Ax in the Brick Yard
A convict who had waited years for the man who testified against him finally gets his chance at Walla Walla — and takes it with an ax.
- Work for a Meal: The Salvation Army’s ‘Elevator’ Opens in Seattle
The Salvation Army opened a combined shelter, soup kitchen and workshop near Third and South Second, offering hundreds of meals and 130 beds—provided able-bodied men earned their keep.
- The First Wedding in Seattle, Celebrated Forty-Two Years Later
David and Louisa Denny gather four generations of pioneers at their Temperance Street home, where relics of the 1850s—and the certificate from Seattle’s first marriage—turn an anniversary into a founding story.
- The Newspaper Letter That Nearly Started a Fight in the Washington Senate
With the U.S. Senate election deadlocked in Olympia, a Pierce County senator read a rival’s letter aloud — and the chamber erupted over money, lobbyists, and borrowed favors.
- A 'Beast' in the Courtroom Says Only 'Not a Word'
McGee, convicted of assaulting his wife with intent to murder, drew ten years in Walla Walla—but his appeal kept him in the King County jail while Seattle read about his courtroom act.
- The Army Wanted a Fort on Magnolia Bluff
A federal board called most Puget Sound defenses obsolete and urged a permanent post overlooking Seattle.
- A Seattle Family Keeps Vigil for a Son Lost on the Elbe
Kurt Kleinschmidt, a brilliant young mining engineer bound for home and his father's coal ventures in the Skagit country, was aboard the doomed North German Lloyd steamer — leaving his parents at Madison and Fourteenth to hope against hope that he simply missed the boat.
- Bullets for a Neighbor on Vashon Island
A rancher says George Weston, his only neighbor, fired through his cabin window and later drew a bead on him from the beach. Now Ole Christofersen wants the law to bind Weston to keep the peace.