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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1891 | 50 |
| 1892 | 5 |
55 stories matching hous
- The School Law That Existed Only in the Enrolled Bill
A $3,700 school-fund dispute in Spokane exposed a legislative clerk's error—and left Washington's superintendent asking whether the enrolled bill or the journals were law.
- Free Mail Delivery Is Coming to Olympia—If the City Numbers Its Houses
Postmaster V. A. Milroy says carriers, boxes and three new routes will be ready by New Year’s Day, but two-thirds of the city’s houses still lack numbers and property owners must pay to add them.
- 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.
- A Fire Started in a Brothel. It Took Centralia's Opera House and Newspaper.
A blaze behind a Tower Avenue saloon jumped to the Binkley opera house and the Daily News office, gutting a commercial block despite heavy rain and a fierce firefight.
- A Customs House Boss and the Fight to Run Washington
A federal deputy collector resigns in Seattle and accuses the custom house crowd of building a machine for Senator Squire.
- The Bucket Brigade That Saved a Block
Two brothers woke to smoke and falling embers in a Third Street lodging house, then doused the roof fire before the department could even join the fight.
- 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.
- A Sunday Earthquake Rattles Olympia, Stopping Clocks and Startling Diners
At 3:15 p.m. on Nov. 29, 1891, a sharp tremor shook the city, rattled windows, swayed chandeliers, and sent one hotel guest diving for the stairs.
- Close Washington Street to Wagons: Olympia's 1891 Dream for the Public Square
As the new county courthouse nears completion, the superintendent in charge proposes grading the square level with Seventh Street, banishing heavy teams, and laying winding, shrub-lined walks with a pavilion for evening concerts.
- John L. Sullivan Comes to Olympia, and the City Council Adjourns for the Show
The heavyweight champion and the Pacific Coast’s great theatrical manager packed the Olympia Theater, traded jokes about brick opera houses, and drew the mayor and nearly every councilman into the audience.
- Thurston County’s $3,985 Court House Contract Went to a New York Firm
Commissioners signed off on metal vault furniture for the new county courthouse, trimming the order from $5,000 and choosing a Rochester manufacturer after inspecting competing bids in Seattle and Tacoma.
- The Eastern Oregon Burned at Percival’s Wharf
A repair crew’s paint store caught fire aboard the steamship Eastern Oregon, forcing men to jump forty feet to the mudflats and killing one cook; the blaze threatened Percival’s Wharf before rain helped firefighters.
- A Tinker's Alibi: How Tumwater Witnesses Overturned a Tacoma Murder Conviction
George Stowe was serving twenty years for shooting Enoch Crosby on a Tacoma street. Then residents of Tumwater swore they had watched him mend tinware miles away on the day of the murder.
- The People’s Ticket: Olympia’s 1891 Caucus Revolt
A printed slate handed out at the door, a mayor booed as 'defeated,' and a second-ward protest meeting: the fight over who would control Olympia's city nominations.
- 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.
- 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 Death Threat Pinned to the Door of a Tide-Land Official
While Col. Will L. Visscher was in Olympia on public land business, someone beat his dog and left a note warning that his Fairhaven house would burn.
- They Put Their Houses on Wagons: How the Railroad Killed One Yakima and Made Another
The Northern Pacific wins its Supreme Court fight over a depot too late — Yakima City's residents have already hauled their buildings across the sagebrush to North Yakima.
- The Midnight Murder Cry That Was Only a Baby
Union Street neighbors grabbed clubs and prepared to storm a house after screams of murder—only to learn the household had just grown by one.
- 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.
- Olympia's New Council Hands 'Boss' Sickels the Purse Strings
The new city council takes office, gives Boss Sickels the powerful ways-and-means chair, and confronts a railroad-blocked sewer, a fire department asking for more hydrants and alarm boxes, and a thin city treasury.
- Forty Thousand Bricks Rejected at the New Courthouse
Superintendent Rogers refused to let nearly 40,000 soft bricks from a Westside yard go into Olympia's new courthouse, warning contractors that the specifications would be enforced.
- A Packed House Watches a Dying Cardinal Bring Down the Curse of Rome
Touring tragedian Keene fills the Olympia Theater with Bulwer's 'Richelieu' — and promises Shakespeare's Richard III for tonight, with 'but a few seats left.'
- The Governor Who Filled Washington Returns, and Finds It Full
Sixteen years after leaving office, former territorial governor Edward Salomon walks back into an Olympia hotel and finds old friends grown wealthy — and a young state he helped populate now competing with Seattle and Tacoma for its own future.
- A Cow, a Pistol, and a Pitchfork
Two men east of Olympia fought over a single cow—one with a revolver, the other with a pitchfork—and then showed up at the same doctor's office to get patched up.