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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 9 |
| 1877 | 3 |
| 1878 | 2 |
| 1880 | 3 |
17 stories matching lock
- The Stranger at the Clarendon Hotel
A young man arrives in Seattle, keeps to himself, and ends his life in a locked hotel room, leaving behind only a name that may not be his own.
- The Mother-in-Law’s Vengeance
A cantankerous encounter at the local recorder's office reveals a domestic dispute that turns violent, involving a skillet and a very narrow escape.
- The Jailhouse Scuffle
A drunken brawl in a jail cell turns into a messy confrontation between a prisoner and the jailer.
- The Sad Martyr of Snohomish City
A local official’s descent into obsession over an impossible get-rich-quick scheme mirrors the mania of early Washington's frontier booms.
- The Jailhouse Audit: Seattle's 1877 Infrastructure Battle
Before the city's modern boom, King County commissioners were locked in a tense legal standoff over the construction costs of the local jail.
- The Unending Grading of Front Street
Seattle's downtown thoroughfare is locked in a cycle of costly miscalculations, mud, and construction delays.
- The Election Week Hangover
A Seattle saloon keeper closes shop to avoid brawls as partisan fever turns his establishment into a battleground.
- The 'Pretty Man' at the Seattle Theatre
An 1878 local columnist offers a biting, satirical takedown of a local dandy, mocking his grooming habits and public vanity at the theatre.
- The Exhausting Wait: How Seattle's 1874 Election Paralyzed the City
After election clerks were locked in a hall for thirty hours to tally votes, local journalists decried the bureaucratic slog as a 'quarry slave' ordeal that turned even the most patient men into irritable, sleep-deprived ruins.
- The Tragedy at Fourth Street: A Suicide in the Empire Mill Owner's Room
In a grim scene on October 2, 1876, Henry Bendel was found dead in his Seattle boarding house room, having taken his own life with a revolver. The incident highlights the precarious nature of business ownership in the young frontier town.
- The Iron Road vs. The River: A 19th Century Fight for Seattle's Future
An editorial from 1877 argues that the future of the Northwest lies in narrow-gauge railroads rather than the unruly Columbia River.
- The Forgotten Quest for an Agricultural Mortgage Bank
An 1877 op-ed from the Seattle Daily Intelligencer argues that the Territory's economic future depends on fixing the rural credit crunch.
- The Mayor’s Peaches and the City’s Panic: A Night of Burglary in Pioneer Square
Burglars break into Mayor Gattert’s home on Third Street, fleeing with nothing but a can of peaches, while public outrage over crime reaches a fever pitch.
- The Professor Who Escaped the Shackles: A Seattle Spiritualist’s Audacious Escape
In July 1876, Professor S.S. Baldwin drew a crowd at Yesler’s Hall not for his spiritualist tricks, but for his daring escape from handcuffs and leg irons—a feat that left the audience gasping and proved he was no fraud.
- The Struggle for the Swinomish Slough
While Washington Territory languished without federal infrastructure support, local steamboat operators were left to navigate a dangerous, shifting channel entirely on their own dime.
- 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 Sawmill Scandal: Henry Yesler’s Long Legal War
Before the city grew, Seattle’s founding titan was locked in a decade-long, bitter courtroom battle over his sawmill, revealing the ruthless undercurrents of the frontier economy.