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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1872 | 8 |
| 1876 | 12 |
| 1877 | 7 |
| 1878 | 10 |
| 1879 | 1 |
| 1880 | 3 |
41 stories matching second
- 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 Miracle Cure of 1872
A Seattle resident documents his miraculous recovery from twenty years of deafness under the care of a visiting traveling physician.
- The Palace of Ink and Pine
A satirical look at a new, supposedly 'palatial' three-story printing office in Seattle, which turns out to be just one story above a Chinese wash-house.
- The Scandal at the Springfield Hotel
A young woman’s stay at a local hotel comes to a chaotic end when three separate men arrive to claim her as their own.
- The Graveyard That Vanished: Seattle’s Urban Sprawl Swallows the Dead
As new dwellings rise on Front Street and Stewart Square, the old burial ground is being paved over, erasing a physical link to the city's earliest days.
- The Floor Gives Way: Panic and Death at Seattle’s Morris Opera House
A grand opening night turns into a nightmare when the second-story floor of the newly converted theater collapses into the stables below, killing several and injuring dozens in one of the city's earliest major disasters.
- God and the Daily Grind in 1878 Seattle
A glimpse into the moral anxieties and spiritual life of a burgeoning pioneer town, where the pulpit met the realities of guilt and sin.
- The Price of Sin in Pioneer Seattle
While the city's elite debated municipal elections and infrastructure, a thief made off with a trunk full of coins and jewelry from a house on the margins of society.
- 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.
- The 'Lava-Bed Ranger' and the Brawl at the Saloon
A rowdy evening in 1876 Seattle ends in a courtroom, highlighting the rough-and-tumble street life of a frontier town.
- The Forgotten Mariners of Puget Sound
Two sailors sue for unpaid wages in 1880, revealing the rough, transient life of the maritime labor force that powered Seattle's early economy.
- The Night the 'Mad House' Burned Down
A suspicious blaze destroys a landmark building in Seattle, forcing local citizens to scramble to save the nearby gas works from the encroaching flames.
- The Great Gale of 1878
A rare, unprecedented windstorm tears through downtown Seattle, rattling the nerves and rooflines of the city’s early pioneers.
- The Grange's Predecessor: Organizing King County’s First Farmers
In 1872, the local agricultural community formalized their guild, setting strict rules for annual fairs, membership dues, and the communal defense of the profession.
- The Great Seattle Saw-Mill Gamble
When the city's leading industry, the Yesler Mill, was placed into a grand lottery to boost the local economy and resolve debt, it sparked a frontier frenzy of ticket-buying.
- The Day Seattle Decided Its Own Elevation
A forgotten 1877 municipal ordinance reveals the precise moment the city set its literal foundation, anchoring the downtown grid to a granite step on Commercial Street.
- The Great Seattle Heatwave of 1876: Sunstroke Claims Lives as City Swelters
While the nation fixates on Custer’s Last Stand and political deadlocks in Washington D.C., Seattle is locked in a silent, deadly battle against an unrelenting July heatwave that is proving fatal to its residents.
- The Legal Scramble for a Seattle Property Claim
A standard legal notice in the Seattle Weekly Intelligencer reveals the tense, high-stakes nature of territorial property disputes in 1880.
- The City Goes to the Polls in 1878
A rare glimpse into the logistical footprint of Seattle’s civic life during the era of wooden sidewalks and horse-drawn carriages.
- The Forgotten Wife of Seattle: Dr. Maynard’s Double Life
A landmark land dispute in 1872 reveals how the territorial government attempted to erase the existence of Dr. David S. Maynard's first wife, Lydia, to secure a donation claim for his second family.
- Seattle’s Early 1878 Council Meetings
Before the skyline, the city was built on ordinances, grain dryers, and the push for a trans-mountain railroad.
- The Unlikely Tale of the 'Pull-Back' Train Stopper
A small-town mechanic's wild invention—a massive rubber cable designed to hook trains that left without their passengers—actually worked.
- The Workingman's Protest Against Seattle's 'Class Tax'
An early Seattle citizen takes to the press to challenge a municipal licensing ordinance, arguing it unfairly shifts the tax burden from the wealthy onto the backs of laborers.
- Three Children Dead in a Week: Diphtheria Stalks a Legislator's Family
Called home from the legislature by a telegram, Hon. Joseph Foster buries three children in a single week as his wife lies gravely ill with the same disease.
- The Sailor Who Sold the Editor
A seafaring impostor weaves a tale of tragedy and shipwreck to con a meal out of local journalists, exposing the desperate vulnerability of the early Seattle news beat.