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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1872 | 10 |
| 1876 | 5 |
| 1877 | 9 |
| 1878 | 5 |
| 1880 | 4 |
33 stories matching instead
- The Primary Teacher’s Plea: Why Seattle’s Schools Are Failing Our Children
Miss C.I.T. Parsons delivers a scathing indictment of the King County Teachers' Institute, arguing that cheap buildings and unqualified instructors are robbing Seattle’s youth of their potential.
- The Great Cattle Stampede on Wharf Street
Eight head of prize beef from Puget Sound ignored the slaughterhouse route and raided a grain store instead.
- The Abandoned Wife of Seattle's Founder
Dr. David S. Maynard claimed 640 acres in Seattle, then secretly divorced his wife of 24 years to marry another—a legal battle that exposed the heartless machinations of the city's early days.
- The Legal Scramble for Maynard’s Land
A bitter newspaper feud reveals the messy reality of early Seattle’s land titles, where a complex divorce and a 'lost' first wife sparked a struggle over ownership in the city’s heart.
- The Great Seattle Railroad Swindle
How corporate speculators and land rings bypassed honest stockholders and plundered the future of the city's waterfront.
- The Great Poker Heist: A Man Steals Glass to Escape His Debts
In a bizarre twist of justice in 1872 Seattle, a gambler fleeing a poker loss was caught stealing window panes from a saloon instead of cash.
- The Great Railway Monopoly Struggle of 1877
An editorial from the Seattle Weekly Dispatch reveals the town's early, bitter fight against the Northern Pacific Railroad's land-grabbing tactics.
- The Politics of Poverty: Seattle’s 1878 Voter Suppression Fight
A century and a half ago, local officials tried to implement a 'poll tax' to restrict voting rights, sparking a fierce debate over whether a citizen’s right to participate in democracy could be tied to their financial status.
- When a Railroad Held the Territory Hostage: The 1877 Fight Over the Northern Pacific Land Grant
Governor Ferry's message to the Legislature proposes a 10-year extension for the Northern Pacific—but warns the territory will be crippled if the western terminus lands in Portland instead of Puget Sound.
- The Great Land Ring of the Northern Pacific
Settlers of Washington Territory take on a powerful railroad corporation accused of hoarding public land for private profit.
- The Rowdy Election of 1872: When Seattle Politics Was a Bare-Knuckle Brawl
A stormy Republican County Convention in 1872 exposes the messy, insider-heavy machinery behind early Seattle's local government.
- The Grammar Grudge of 1876
An editor and a local developer get into a petty, hilarious feud over building codes, split infinitives, and civic competence.
- The 'Fanatical Old Ass': A Local Political Feud in 1876
A fiery editorial from the Seattle Daily Tribune attacks the federal appointment of General Robert H. Milroy to a territorial post, painting him as a moralizing carpetbagger who failed to earn the respect of his own neighbors.
- The Taxation Trap: How Seattle’s Liquor Licenses Were Feeding the County, Not the City
In 1876, a territorial newspaper railed against a fiscal injustice: Seattle taxpayers were footing the bill for policing and street maintenance, while the county kept the revenue from liquor licenses sold within city limits.
- The Jailhouse Blunder in Seattle
A man was locked away for a week without due process, exposing deep incompetence in the administration of territorial justice.
- The Unfortunate Travels of an 'Imperial' Grifter
A self-proclaimed Russian noble finds that Seattle hospitality—and the local church choir—has its limits when his 'aristocratic' habits turn out to be nothing more than petty fraud.
- Seattle's Barrel Factory Doubles Its Shifts — 'No Chance for Chinamen There'
The factory near Belltown boosts production to 4,000 barrels a day and hires about a hundred men and boys, all white, in a blunt public statement of racial hiring policy.
- A Seattle Fish Firm Fires Its Chinese Workers — and the Paper Cheers
In 1877, Tull & Co. dismissed all of its Chinese employees and hired white men in their place, a move the Dispatch celebrated as patriotism.
- The Rotten Beef Scandal of 1872
When a local market was accused of selling diseased meat, the ensuing war of words revealed the thin line between journalism and extortion in early Seattle.
- The First Teachers’ Institute: A Battle for Seattle’s Soul
In September 1872, the Territory’s top educators gathered in Seattle to debate everything from corporal punishment to the role of women in teaching, laying the groundwork for public education in Washington.
- The Great Drift: Seattle’s First Regatta Ends in a Tie with the Wind
Fifteen boats battled light airs and navigational errors during the July 4th celebration on Puget Sound, proving that even in 1876, Seattle's weather was as unpredictable as its politics.
- The Railway Land Grab: Seattle's Growth Tied to Northern Pacific Expansion
A new congressional bill promises to extend the Northern Pacific Railroad's deadline by a decade, while stripping away land grants intended for the vital link to Puget Sound.
- The Wooden Walls of Puget Sound
A survey of the booming fleet of vessels built in Washington Territory in 1877, and why the local economy was missing out on the profits of its own timber.
- The Gentleman Wood-Sawyer of Seattle
When a young man’s romantic and financial future hung in the balance, he traded his social standing for an axe to impress a boarding-house landlady’s daughter.
- The Great Railroad Delay: Washington Territory’s Fight for the Northern Pacific
Federal lawmakers in Washington D.C. have rejected a proposal to settle land claims in Washington Territory, opting instead to grant the Northern Pacific Railway an eight-year extension to complete its tracks.