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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1891 | 9 |
| 1892 | 5 |
14 stories matching exceed
- A Taxpayer Tries to Stop the City From Writing Checks It Can’t Cover
Francis Hoffman and the Olympia Hardware Company ask a judge to block further city warrants, arguing Olympia has blown past its debt limit.
- Tacoma's Fire Chief and Driver Crash on Their Way to a Blaze
A small house fire on Hood Street led to a collision at Pacific Avenue that cost driver H. M. Packenham his arm and left Chief Lillis with a possible brain injury.
- A Bishop Claimed 430 Acres of a Federal Military Reservation
The Roman Catholic Bishop of Nesqually went to the U.S. Supreme Court to secure title to the Vancouver military reservation, setting church, Crown-era permission, and federal ownership against one another.
- A Schoolteacher Vanishes Between Fargo and Puget Sound
A letter to Washington's school superintendent asks after Minnie Cooper, last heard from in Tacoma and bound for a country school west of the city.
- No Appropriation, No Warrants: Washington's 1891 Budget Standoff
The state treasurer refuses to honor university and militia warrants the legislature never funded, the Supreme Court backs him up, and Governor Ferry — in poor health — lets the idea of an extra session die.
- The $25,000 Schoolhouse and the Competition That Smelled
A letter writer asks the school board a sharp question: if the winning architect was allowed to redraw his plans after the price came in too high, what exactly was the competition for?
- A Deal to Fix Maple Park—If the City Does Its Part
Maple Park's property owners offer to grade their streets if the city fixes the central park—and a plan surfaces to remake the square in front of the new courthouse.
- A City on the Brink: Olympia’s 1891 Debt Crisis and the Fight Over Jobs
Facing a constitutional debt limit, Olympia’s city council considers firing the deputy clerk, assistant city attorney, and city engineer—while a motion to revoke the street railway franchise fails by a tie.
- The last of Lincoln's men in Olympia dies at eighty
Judge John G. Sparks — territorial auditor, justice of the peace, temperance worker and twenty-two-year Methodist — is carried to his grave by the bar and the Masons.
- A Schoolhouse Fight Over Who Builds Olympia
Local architects and mechanics cry foul after the school board quietly accepts a Tacoma-drawn plan for the new high school.
- The Brick Blocks That Told Olympia It Had Arrived
In 1891, three pressed-brick buildings rose along Olympia’s business streets—and boosters read them as proof the wooden capital was becoming a real city.
- The City Can Tear It Down: The Supreme Court Backs Seattle's Fire Limits
Daniel K. Baxter put up a twenty-foot shell of wooden posts wrapped in corrugated iron inside Seattle's fire limits. The state Supreme Court said the city could knock it down without ever going to court — and municipal building codes came out of it stronger than before.
- The Treasurer Who Vanished, Then Wrote Home From Puget Sound
An Iowa county official disappeared in the 1870s. After his death, his family gathered at the Olympia Hotel to settle an estate—and letters revealed a hidden life, a bank failure, and a real-estate boom he hoped would make restitution possible.
- Olympia’s Booster Year: Brick, Bridges and a 50,000-Person Promise
As 1891 closed, the capital city counted $3 million in new buildings, a record bridge, electric lights and new rail lines — and predicted 50,000 residents within a decade.