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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1891 | 18 |
| 1892 | 13 |
31 stories matching hard
- The County Courthouse Construction Scandal
A superintendent is forced out after refusing to accept substandard materials for the new county building.
- The Man Who Sold Olympia's Eastside Like Hot Cakes
W. E. Sebree platted a tract on the Eastside, cleared nearly $40,000, toured Alaska and Europe — and came home to a town he hardly recognized.
- A Sick Child, an Empty Cupboard, and $22 in the Collection Plate
A Unitarian minister in Tacoma argues that charity is only a bandage, and that a man who works hard and still cannot feed his family is the church's real problem to solve.
- Four Shirts, Soft Hands, and Ten Years: Olympia Sends a Window-Smasher to the Penitentiary
A burglar who broke into two downtown jewelry stores and made off with a watch and some plated ware gets the maximum from Judge Robinson — and nearly faints when he hears it.
- Defective Brick in the Courthouse? The Former Superintendent Says Yes
Former superintendent W. A. Rogers says the county courthouse contains defective brick that can be crushed by hand, disputing the county attorney's claim that only the architecture is at fault.
- A 'Godsend' on Fourth Street: Olympia's Mothers Furnish a Room to Keep the Boys Out of the Saloons
In a hard-times autumn, the women's auxiliary of the new Young Men's Christian Association canvassed the town for chairs, papers and games — and promised the doors at 406 Fourth Street would open December 1.
- A Hard Day at the Coal Depot Ends in Paralysis for One of Olympia's Oldest Citizens
A prominent Olympian collapses after a day of heavy work in the rain; doctors prescribe quiet as visitors crowd St. Peter's Hospital.
- Caught in the Dynamo: A Tacoma Worker Squeezed to Death at His Post
Edward H. Curran was at his station in the Tacoma Light and Water Company's electric plant when the machinery pulled him through a gap far too small for a man, breaking nearly every bone in his body.
- A Community Effort to Save a Young Life
Local residents pool their own money to send a young man struggling with addiction to the Keeley Institute for treatment.
- Murphy Forever: A Rival Editor Skewers Olympia's Perpetual Councilman
Days before the First Ward election, the Tribune turns its sarcasm on Councilman John Miller Murphy — newspaper editor, theater proprietor, professed temperance man, and, by this account, a fixture in the council chamber and at the bar he once voted to close.
- The State Is Broke: Why Olympia Needs an Emergency Legislature
A supreme court ruling on university lands has left Washington's brand-new state government without money to pay its own debts — and the Olympia Tribune argues the legislature must be hauled back to the capital before the state's credit collapses.
- The State Can't Find Its Land — and Timber Companies Got There First
A state land cruiser reports that Washington's 670,000-acre capitol grant is mostly poor land already claimed by squatters working for big lumber outfits.
- The Governor, the Corporations, and the Session He Wouldn't Call
A leaked cabinet meeting shows Governor Ferry weighing an extra legislative session against the wrath of corporations—and his own officials split over whether the state can wait.
- They Robbed the Dead as the Surf Came In
A Pacific County newspaper condemned beach scavengers who stripped bodies and trunks after a shipwreck—and recalled the shame of the Grace Roberts disaster.
- Fair Play for the Bandstand Builders
When businessmen whispered that the contractors erecting Olympia’s bandstand were outsiders, a letter to the editor insisted that a family man who had spent $600 waiting for work deserved a fighting chance.
- 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 Letter That Asked: Is Olympia's Street-Tax Ordinance Even Legal?
A citizen signing himself 'Marius' argues that the city's method of charging property owners for street paving and grading violates due process — and warns that if the assessments collapse in court, every taxpayer in town will pay for it.
- Who Pays for the Streets That Boost Land Values?
A taxpayer objects as Olympia considers borrowing from the general fund to cover private street-grading debts in distant additions.
- Workingmen Open a People’s Forum—and Hear That Olympia Sits on a Volcano
Two hundred residents packed Columbia Hall for the first of a series of public-question meetings, where speakers warned of hard times and one declared the city was on the edge of an eruption.
- When Olympia Readers Argued About Inequality and the Machine
At a Unitarian class in 1891 Olympia, seventeen adults debated Henry George, concentrated wealth, and whether machines were turning workers into automatons.
- The Legislature’s Unfinished Business—and the Case for a Special Session
An anonymous Olympia lawmaker told The Tribune that defective appropriation laws, unpaid citizens and stalled state business demanded a special session by December.
- Women, Workers, and a $40,000 School Bond
Olympia prepared to vote on a new high school, with women at the polls and labor demanding that local hands build it.
- Who Should Keep Olympia's Money?
On the eve of the 1891 municipal election, a dozen anonymous Olympians argued over the city treasurer's race, a regular nominee, a new brick block, and a saloonkeeper's ten-dollar joke.
- Tacoma Tries to Sell Itself to a Visiting New Yorker
A New York Tribune interview with Charles S. Smith set off a Tacoma-Seattle inferiority complex: real railroads versus prospective ones, wheat and coal versus new blocks and fine homes.
- 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.