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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1872 | 3 |
| 1876 | 5 |
| 1877 | 3 |
| 1878 | 5 |
| 1880 | 3 |
19 stories matching lower
- A Ghastly Industrial Tragedy at Westport
A sawmill accident on the lower Columbia claims the life of a British immigrant.
- The Price of a July Fourth Celebration
A Seattle printer and a child suffer grave injuries from an errant Chinese bomb during the 1872 Independence Day festivities.
- The Mud of Commercial Street
Seattle’s main commercial artery was once a treacherous gauntlet of 'semi-fluid mud' and rats, nearly impassable for the city's horse-drawn wagons.
- The Unscripted Tragedy at Yesler's Hall
A young child’s refusal to follow the script during a dramatic performance forces the lead actor to lower the curtain on the show.
- The Devil-Fish of Port Orchard
A local fisherman's harrowing encounter with a tentacled beast off the coast of Kitsap County.
- The Great Thaw: Mountain Snows Turn Every River Into a Rampage
An unusually cool spring held a winter's worth of snow until a few hot days sent it all down at once, flooding the Skagit, Cowlitz and Columbia, drowning farmland and putting Portland under water.
- The Rising Brick Skyline of Early Seattle
As Schwabacher Brothers prepares a massive new brick warehouse on Commercial Street, the city celebrates its shift from wooden frame town to a permanent commercial hub.
- A Passenger Revolt Against Seattle’s 'Dirty' Steamers
A visiting general and his party refused to board a local vessel, sparking a public outcry over the state of regional maritime transit.
- The Hilltop Slip: Seattle’s Shifting Waterfront
Decades before the regrades reshaped the city, residents of the Belltown waterfront watched their homes slide into the bay as the ground beneath them turned to quicksand.
- The Bureaucratic Standoff at Point-No-Point
A federal effort to build a lighthouse on Puget Sound hit a wall in 1878 when landowners demanded 'exorbitant' prices, sparking a debate over the government's power to acquire land.
- The Horror on Fifth Street: A Seattle Tragedy in 1877
A prominent local businessman, once a logger and grocer, descended into a violent, drug-fueled psychotic break that devastated his family and left the community reeling.
- A Frontier Library Lost to Flame
When fire gutted the residence of a prominent territorial family, a community rallied to replace the lost comforts of a home built through years of industry.
- A Perilous Plunge Aboard the City of Panama
An elderly passenger’s fall through an unsecured hatchway exposes the dangerous negligence of a bustling Seattle steamship.
- The Deadly Cost of a 'Sporting' Joke in Sullivan County
A tragic accident near a church gathering leaves a seventeen-year-old girl dead after a careless prank with a loaded shotgun.
- The Courthouse That Built Itself
As Seattle transitioned from a frontier lumber outpost into a formal city, the County Commissioners finally took the 'bull by the horns' to replace scattered offices with a grand civic monument.
- Taxation Without Infrastructure: The Skagit River Fight of 1880
While Washington Territory sent tax dollars to Washington D.C., federal officials offered little in return, forcing local residents to build their own river infrastructure.
- 'Free' Printing, $176 Later: Seattle's County Contract Scandal of 1877
The Dispatch accuses the Intelligencer of taking public money after bidding to do the county's printing for nothing—and demands the next contract be opened to honest bids.
- The Dog in the Manger: How Seattle’s Landlords Are Killing Its Future
An editorial in the 1876 Puget Sound Dispatch warns that greedy real estate owners are pricing out workers with usurious rents, comparing their tactics to Shylock and urging them to lower prices before the city stagnates.
- The Battle for the Territory: Judson vs. Jacobs in the 1876 Election
As the nation grapples with the disputed presidential election of 1876, Washington Territory voters head to the polls to decide their own future, pitting Republican J.P. Judson against Democrat Judge Jacobs in a fierce contest for territorial supremacy.