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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1871 | 1 |
| 1872 | 11 |
| 1876 | 7 |
| 1877 | 15 |
| 1878 | 27 |
| 1879 | 2 |
| 1880 | 3 |
66 stories matching line
- The End of an Era for a Pioneer Printer
Austin A. Bell closes his Seattle jobbing business, offering his entire stock of type and heavy press equipment at a clearance price.
- The Closing of a Pressroom Era
As the Seattle economy shifts, a local printer liquidates his entire inventory, marking the end of a small-scale business in a growing territory.
- The End of a Printing Era
As the Seattle economy shifts, one of the city's early job printers liquidates his massive wood type collection, marking a quiet close to a chapter of local industry.
- The Wild West of the Seattle Waterfront
A dangerous 1877 standoff between captains reveals a lawless, unregulated harbor where ship lines were a hazard to life and limb.
- The Rails That Built Seattle
Civic leaders convene to expand the Seattle & Walla Walla Railroad, the ambitious line designed to link the growing city to the bounty of the east.
- The Battle for the Big Cut
On the frontier of 1872, railroad crews fight the Cowlitz floods and 'Big Cut' rock to carve a path for the North Pacific line.
- The Terminus Bait: How the Northern Pacific Played Seattle
In 1878, Washington residents saw through the railroad's broken promises and the cynical 'town lot' real estate schemes that kept the city waiting for a line.
- Seattle’s First Brush with the Future
When an agent from Portland brought a pair of telephones to town, residents gathered at Yesler’s Hall to hear voices and music traveling eight miles through thin air.
- The Price of Print: A Pioneer Newspaper’s Inventory Liquidation
A rare glimpse into the mechanics of 1878 journalism as a Seattle printer liquidates his entire shop, signaling the volatile life of local presses.
- The Waterfront Conflict: Escalating Violence on Yesler's Wharf
Tensions boil over as displaced workers and local youth clash in a series of violent altercations on the Seattle waterfront.
- The Human Spider of Occidental Square
A sailor scaled a 135-foot flagpole in downtown Seattle to keep the city’s Fourth of July celebrations on schedule.
- The 'Folly' of Tacoma: A Steamboat Traveler’s Skeptical Report
An 1876 visitor finds the new city of Tacoma lacking and highlights the tragic loss of local boys at sea.
- Seattle's 1877 Plea: Build a Wagon Road Over the Cascades Before Portland Steals the Inland Empire
With no railroad yet across the mountains, a Seattle newspaper argued the city's future depended on a wagon road to Yakima—before Portland grabbed the inland trade forever.
- 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.
- Minister Ties Columbia River Rapids to Costly Freight
A century and a half ago, Seattle boosters were already plotting to cut Portland out of the regional economy by building a railroad to the interior.
- The Great Seattle Railroad Swindle
How corporate speculators and land rings bypassed honest stockholders and plundered the future of the city's waterfront.
- The City That Almost Wasn't: How Seattle Lost Its Railroad Bet
When the Northern Pacific Railroad bypassed Seattle in favor of Tacoma, local investors faced a choice: watch their city wither or build their own line.
- The Ring of Corruption: How King County’s Auditor Hid the Books
A scathing editorial in the Puget Sound Dispatch exposes Gardner Kellogg for refusing to explain thousands of dollars in missing county funds, accusing him of treating public office as private property.
- The Horse That Stopped a City: How an Epidemic Ground Seattle to a Halt
In October 1872, a mysterious disease swept through the Pacific Northwest, paralyzing streetcars and commerce. As merchants turned to oxen and hand carts, the Territory of Washington faced its first major public health crisis.
- The audacious railroad land grab that made Seattle's delegate a target
Facing attacks from the Tacoma Herald, Judge Orange Jacobs is praised for blocking a Northern Pacific claim to 783,600 acres — land the railroad tried to take for building just 31 miles of a 'branch road' to a coal mine.
- 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 'Pitiful Hedizzened Hurlots': Seattle's Moral Panic Over the Steamship Brothels
In September 1872, a furious editorial in the *Seattle Daily Intelligencer* condemned the floating red-light districts on Puget Sound, accusing steamship lines of carrying 'pollution and death' to every port while politicians looked away.
- The Perilous Path to Nowhere
A survey team's disastrous expedition into the Cascades exposes the grand delusions of railroad barons chasing land grants.
- The Tax Swindle: How Seattle’s Printer Defrauded His Neighbors
In 1872, the publisher of the *Puget Sound Dispatch* exposed a collusive scheme between local tax collectors and a rival newspaper to overcharge delinquent taxpayers for legal notices, sparking a bitter war of words in the territorial press.
- 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.