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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1891 | 10 |
| 1892 | 7 |
17 stories matching roll
- A Variety Troupe Rolls Into Olympia, Log-Jam Scene and All
The Swedish-American comedy 'Yon Yonson' wins the house — and the paper can't stop describing its loudest, beefiest actress with a mixture of delight and disbelief.
- 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.
- The sheriff seizes Olympia's streetcars, mid-block, over a bond
A lawyer's objection leaves a Main Street horse car standing stock still at Sixth for hours while the company's backers scramble for a new bond.
- Olympia's Boosters Had a Plan for the Tide Flats: Give Land to Factories
In March 1892, five local men formed an improvement company to buy waterfront tide lands, donate parcels to manufacturers, and press governments to dredge a deep-water harbor.
- 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.
- Rainier’s Shingle Boom and the Road Olympia Forgot
A Rainier correspondent reports new shingle mills and warns that Olympia merchants are losing rural trade to Tacoma by ignoring the roads that feed the city.
- A Century After Captain Gray: Grays Harbor Plans a Grand Celebration
Towns across Grays Harbor prepare a two-day centennial with a clam bake, steamer excursions, and railroad trips to mark the 1792 discovery of the harbor.
- The Night Fourth Street Lit Up: Ellis's Furniture Warehouse Burns
A fire breaks out above a frame warehouse after ten o'clock, the east side of the city glows, and firemen haul chairs and mattresses into the street until the heat drives them back.
- 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.
- Bypassed by the Railroad, Olympia Grabbed a Shovel
When the Northern Pacific chose Tacoma, Olympia’s citizens turned Thursdays into railroad-building days—then remade their town as a bustling capital of 8,500.
- A Beardless Boy's 1855 Passage Through Puget Sound—and the Death of Abe Moses
A reminiscence from the Montesano Vidette recalls Olympia as a village in the woods, a kindness in Steilacoom, and a fatal ambush during Washington's early Indian wars.
- Olympia's Volunteer Firefighters Warn the City: We Are One Blaze Away From Disaster
In 1891, the city's three fire companies pushed to reorganize as a single department, citing a 25-year-old hand engine, unfurnished sleeping quarters, and waterfront shacks that could turn a small fire into a catastrophe.
- Tacoma’s 1892 Election Was a Republican Rout—and a Democratic Feud
Herbert S. Huston won the mayor’s office as Republicans swept Tacoma’s city ticket. The paper saw the real drama in a 27-year-old Democratic operative, a losing bet, and a party eating its own.
- Forty Young Olympians Become Company A — and Veto the 'Governor's Guard'
A new National Guard company musters at the capital, elects its officers, and then debates what to call itself — until one young soldier warns that a governor might someday misbehave.
- The Electric Gate: An Olympia Father Declares War on Front-Gate Courting
A gadget-minded Eastside householder wires his front gate to deliver a jolt to lally-gagging sweethearts — and proves it first on an unwitting dog and a cabbage-loving cow.
- 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.
- 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.