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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 15 |
| 1877 | 6 |
| 1878 | 1 |
| 1880 | 5 |
27 stories matching join
- The Brick Renaissance: Transforming Seattle’s 'Tinderbox' Downtown
As Seattle began to outgrow its temporary wooden origins, local businessmen pushed to replace fire-prone wooden structures with modern brick blocks, signaling a new era of permanence and civic ambition.
- A Wedding on the Skagit Flats
A frontier celebration in the late 1870s brings together four river communities for a night of dancing and revelry.
- The Letter Lost in the Cracks
For twelve years, a village woman waited for a lover who never called, unaware that her promise to join him in China had been trapped behind a post office counter all along.
- Seattle’s 1876 Fourth of July Extravaganza
As the United States approached its first centennial, Seattle civic leaders mobilized to prove the frontier outpost was a city of substance, dignity, and unity.
- Seattle's 1876 Fourth of July Invitation to the Whole Territory
As the United States turned 100, local leaders issued a rallying cry to the whole Washington Territory to descend upon Seattle for a historic 4th of July celebration.
- The Centennial Bash of 1876
A committee of Seattle’s power brokers prepares for a city-wide celebration of the nation’s 100th birthday.
- Seattle Invites the Territory to a Centennial Fourth
As the United States turned 100 in 1876, Seattle's civic leaders mobilized an ambitious, city-wide organizing committee to prove the frontier outpost was a proper American town.
- Seattle’s First Independence Day Mega-Festival
As the United States approached its 1876 Centennial, Seattle organizers launched an ambitious, city-wide effort to host a monumental July 4th celebration that would signal the town's arrival on the map.
- Seattle’s First 'Big' Fourth of July
As the nation prepared to mark its Centennial in 1876, the citizens of Seattle mobilized every merchant, captain, and dignitary to prove the young town was ready for the spotlight.
- The Radical Defense of Sweat Equity
In an 1876 editorial, a fierce local voice challenges the city’s idle wealthy to stop 'illustrating fashion's caprices' and embrace the dignity of physical labor.
- The Boy from the Desert
A young man, raised in the comfort of a merchant’s home, struggles with an inexplicable longing for a life he never knew.
- The Fire That Never Came: Seattle’s Barely-Staffed Engine Company
In 1878, the city finally bought a hand engine for fire protection, but with only ten men to crew it, officials warned that a real blaze would leave the town helpless.
- The Great Cow-Milking Debacle of the Seattle Suburbs
A rustic attempt at domestic economy goes hilariously wrong when a young couple faces off against a calf.
- The Human Canvas of 1876
A traveling marvel of the frontier, a man covered in 360 intricate tattoos, arrives in Seattle to tell his harrowing story of survival.
- Midnight Intrusion at the County Jail
A night watchman thwarts a brazen break-in attempt at the Seattle jailhouse after a tense standoff.
- An Invitation to a Celestial Feast
An 1877 dispatch offers a rare, albeit patronizing, glimpse into the intricate social etiquette and lavish dining culture of Seattle’s Chinese mercantile class.
- The Gold Rush That Wasn't: How Seattle’s Prospectors Fooled the Town
In May 1877, a wave of excitement swept through Seattle over reports of rich gold deposits on the Nootsack River. But when the 'prospectors' finally arrived with their claims, it turned out to be an elaborate confidence trick designed to drain the town's cash reserves.
- The Struggle to Save the Harbor
Engineers and locals debate the best way to keep Seattle's waterfront from choking on silt and debris in 1876.
- The City That Waited Too Long
A scathing editorial from 1880 chides Seattle’s civic leaders for their 'supine' failure to build the roads necessary to secure the region's economic future.
- The Ghost Towns of the Skagit Gold Rush
A winter trek through the North Cascades reveals a landscape of stunning beauty marred by the desperate, thieving misery of the failing gold camps.
- Seattle Invites the Whole Territory to Its Centennial Fourth
As the United States turned 100 in 1876, Seattle's civic leaders mobilized an elaborate city-wide committee to prove the frontier outpost was a modern, patriotic city.
- The Iron Wreck: A Train’s Deadly Plunge Near Tacoma
Conductor Stroud and passengers suffer grave injuries when a tender axle fails at 25 mph, sending cars tumbling down an embankment in one of the region's most serious rail accidents to date.
- The Ethics of the Sting
A century before modern debates on police entrapment, Washington courts were already grappling with the line between preventing crime and creating it.
- The Great Partition: Why Walla Walla Wants to Leave Washington
A fiery editorial warns that the eastern half of the territory is plotting to join Oregon, leaving Seattle and the Puget Sound region stranded in a 'provincial' limbo.
- The Great Cow Standoff: When Seattle’s Streets Were Held Hostage by Livestock
In September 1878, a herd of cattle and horses blocked the wharf district, forcing pedestrians to halt in their tracks. The city council was forced to intervene as commerce ground to a standstill.