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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1883 | 4 |
| 1884 | 1 |
| 1885 | 7 |
12 stories matching illumin
- A Grand Welcome for Seattle's Visitors
When an excursion party arrived in Seattle in 1885, they were treated to a citywide illumination and a clam bake at Port Blakely, sparking a fierce local rivalry over the naming of Mount Rainier.
- The Clam Bake That Defined a City
When a visiting delegation of Midwesterners arrived in 1886, Seattle citizens didn't just host them—they illuminated the hills and threw a massive communal feast on the Sound.
- Seattle Welcomes the Iron Road
The completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad sparks a massive civic celebration, promising to end Seattle’s era of isolation.
- Drought and Forest Fires Gripping the Inland Empire
A grim report from the Colville Valley details parched crops, ruined timber, and a sun obscured by thick smoke.
- The Struggle Over Mount Rainier
A traveler in 1885 recounts a journey from Portland to Seattle, noting the locals' intense and 'desperate' campaign to rename the iconic peak dominating the Tacoma skyline.
- The Queen City gets a new tugboat
A festive launch of Stetson & Post's new tugboat ends in a brush with catastrophe.
- Tacoma's railroad 'patron saint' gets a cannon salute
New Tacoma serenaded Northern Pacific director C.B. Wright—and the Post-Intelligencer noted that Seattle had not always been his favorite town.
- An 1885 Delegation's 'Grand Tour' of Seattle
When a Portland delegation arrived in Seattle by steamer in July 1885, they were treated to an opulent tour of the town, a clambake at Port Blakely, and a glowing review in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
- The Torchlight Mob at Frye's Opera House
In 1885, Seattle laborers and anti-Chinese activists gathered for a massive, torch-lit demonstration to demand the removal of the city's Chinese population, marking a dark chapter of exclusionary labor violence in the Pacific Northwest.
- The Clam-Bake Diplomacy of 1885
When a visiting excursion party arrived in Seattle, they were treated to a massive, industrial-scale clam bake at Port Blakely—and the spectacle of geoduck-sized clams that baffled the visitors.
- The Expulsion of Tacoma’s Chinese Residents
A celebratory procession and public speeches in Tacoma mark the return of twenty-seven men indicted for the forced removal of the city's Chinese population.
- Walla Walla’s 1884 Sales Pitch: From a Tent Store to a ‘Metropolitan’ City
A reprinted commercial sketch boasts of wheat, railroads, gasworks and thousands of souls — and lets slip the town’s whole origin story, from a tent on Mill Creek to the great fire of 1866.