Research the archive
Narrow 25,724 newspaper stories by words, years, place, newspaper and subject. See when and where they ran, then download what you find.
Put a phrase in quotes ("rent strike") or leave a word out with a minus (strike -baseball). Old scans misspell names, so when little is found, near-spellings are offered.
Refine1 on
Show the numbers
| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1891 | 4 |
| 1892 | 7 |
11 stories matching float
- A Family on a Float, a Dead Baby, and a Neighbor's Kindness
When the Gore family was found feverish and destitute aboard a float at the foot of Franklin Street, Olympia's charity could not save their youngest child—but it did not abandon them.
- Found Destitute on a Float at the Foot of Franklin Street
Fever takes an infant on Sunday and the mother on Monday, and a subscription pays for the burial.
- Seattle's Election Was Supposed to Draw 8,000. Then the Fraud Reports Started.
With 10,841 names on the rolls, officials expected a big vote—but blank registration certificates were circulating, and Tacoma police found Seattle papers on men arrested as hobos.
- A Boy, a Boarding House, and Two Stolen Diamond Rings
A missing quilt unravels into a ring theft, a confession behind jail bars, and a man bound over for the January court term.
- Olympia's Grand Washington's Birthday Celebration and Statehood Pride
A parade, a packed theater, and a speech linking Washington's legacy to the new state of Washington—Olympia celebrates February 22, 1892.
- Spokane Taxpayers Revolt Before the Bonds Come Due
After selling $1.2 million in bonds, Spokane's council kept planning improvements. Property owners talked injunctions and credit, and the Ledger saw a lesson for every taxpayer.
- Two Miles Perched on the Lower Circle of a Rainbow
A Shelton legislator's private letter describing a steamer passage up Hammersley's Inlet becomes the best prose in the paper — a circle of prismatic color, starfish, glaciers and one awestruck captain.
- The Streetcar That Would Wake Olympia: A $250,000 Bet on Electric Rails to Tumwater Falls
Olympia's gas and electric companies merge, buy up the Deschutes waterfalls, and float gold bonds to run the first electric cars between town and Tumwater.
- The Handmade Naphtha Car That Was Going to Revolutionize Olympia
At a stable on Puget and Third, George Marvin Savage's crew is building a one-off motor car—part streetcar, part joke—for Main Street.
- The Prune Booster's Return: 140 Acres Sold to Twenty Michigan Families
J. R. Chaplin came home from Michigan with buyers for Westside land and a plan to sell Olympia to the East.
- The $10 Million Dream to Turn Olympia Into the Hub of the Northwest
J. R. Chaplin pitched a grand Olympia Improvement Company and a ship canal from Black Lake through the Chehalis to Grays Harbor—enough, he promised, to leave Seattle, Tacoma and Portland behind.