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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 17 |
| 1877 | 17 |
| 1878 | 15 |
| 1879 | 5 |
54 stories matching compani
- The Struggle for the Pacific Northwest’s Iron Backbone
As the Northern Pacific Railroad languished in 1877, the Governor of Washington Territory demanded the company fulfill its land grant promises to break the cycle of land speculation and stagnation.
- The Railroad's Land Grab: How Northern Pacific Hoarded Snohomish’s Future
A local resident exposes the legal loopholes allowing the railroad to retain millions of acres in Western Washington, arguing that this concentrated ownership is strangling settlement and keeping land prices artificially high.
- The Price of a Company Town
Economic instability ripples through Seattle and the Washington Territory as unpaid miners force merchants to tighten their belts.
- Debating the Northern Railroad's Route to Puget Sound
As the Northern Pacific Railroad eyed a Portland terminus to maximize its land grants, a fierce editorial demands the company fulfill its promise to connect the Columbia River to Puget Sound or forfeit its territory.
- The Skagit River Breakup
A pioneer logging venture dissolves as a partner exits the river operations to seek his fortune elsewhere.
- The Railroad That Stole Our Land: How Seattle’s Interests Blocked Snohomish’s Future
A furious letter to the editor exposes how political maneuvering in Washington D.C. and Seattle kept vital federal lands locked up, denying homesteaders their rightful homes while railroad tycoons played games with territory.
- The Great Land Grab: Citizens Unite to Stop the Railroad's Theft of Public Soil
In a packed meeting at Reinig’s Hall, Snohomish leaders condemn the Northern Pacific Railway for hoarding millions of acres while building a secret coal line, vowing to fight Congress to return the land to settlers.
- The Skagit Jam Co. Dissolution Notice
A public declaration marks the formal withdrawal of a member from a territorial logging cooperative.
- Twelve Miles Down, Twelve to Go: Seattle Bets on a Railroad to the Coal Fields
Stockholders reorganized the Seattle and Walla Walla road, re-elected their officers, and then turned on the subscribers who have not paid their bonds — because twenty-four miles of track would open the Cedar River coal and the valley's bottom land.
- The Excelsior Boom: How Puyallup Turned Wood into Bedding
A nascent industry in the 1870s aimed to replace imported hair for mattresses with locally milled cottonwood shavings.
- The Governor’s Visit and the Militia’s March: July 1877 in Snohomish
Governor Perry addresses a rapt crowd on Independence Day, while local men scramble to organize volunteer companies for the Nez Perce War.
- The Monopoly That Almost Killed the Nooksack
Before the valley flourished, settlers fought to break the stranglehold of absentee speculators and corporate monopolies that kept the river choked with logs and local trade shackled.
- Life and Labor at the Carbon Coal Mines
A look inside the 1878 mining boom in Wilkeson, where company-owned land and rugged infrastructure defined the lives of the workers.
- The Ring That Ruled: Whatcom’s Postal War and the Coal Company’s Grip
A furious letter from Blaine exposes how the local post office was hijacked to serve the interests of the coal barons, turning a bureaucratic dispute into a battle for democratic survival.
- A $3 Million Sawmill Goes Corporate on Puget Sound
Port Blakely’s mill owners incorporated in California, putting a $3 million lumber empire under a manager who would run it from the Washington Territory shore.
- The Great Land Grab of 1878: A Territorial Tug-of-War
While D.C. legislators bickered over the Northern Pacific Railroad's land grants and portage routes, Washington Territory settlers fought to secure their homestead rights against corporate expansion.
- The Fortress of Timber: How Mill Barons Bought the Land to Buy the Town
In 1877, a local editorial warned that Port Blakely’s massive timber companies were cornering the market on real estate, creating an economic monopoly that would stifle independent growth and keep workers dependent on their employers.
- The Promised City on the Sound
Promoters in 1879 painted a utopian vision of New Tacoma, promising a perfectly planned metropolis designed for wealth and grandeur at the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad.
- The Timber Tax Trap: How Snohomish County’s Wealth Was Slipping Away
A local writer warns that mill companies are exploiting a flawed $2.50-per-acre tax assessment to monopolize land, leaving the county with debt and no court house while small loggers go bust.
- Descent into the Newcastle Mines
A journalist’s 1877 journey into the deep coal veins of Newcastle reveals the grueling, subterranean life of the miners and the complex logistics of Washington's early industrial expansion.
- The Shadow of the Indian Wars in the Snohomish Valley
As rumors of conflict and uprisings on the upper Columbia stir the frontier, Snohomish locals organize a volunteer militia to defend their settlements.
- The Ghost of Tacoma's Original Downtown
Before the railroad turned Tacoma into a boomtown, the city's future was fought over by competing pioneers and land speculators.
- The Mill Barons Who Took the Wealth and Left the Ruins
A scathing editorial in the 1877 Snohomish Sun condemns Washington Territory’s timber magnates for draining local resources while contributing nothing to schools, roads, or community development.
- The Loggers Who Built a Town: How an Indian Settlement Thrived on the Banks of Port Discovery
While Snohomish debated its own agricultural future, a thriving community of Indigenous farmers and loggers was quietly building a prosperous life in Dungeness, complete with schools, hotels, and dairy herds.
- The Snohomish Afterlife: A Spiritualist Joke
In an 1878 newspaper, a medium's séance takes a darkly humorous turn when a grieving widow asks her late husband if he is in heaven.