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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1891 | 8 |
| 1892 | 7 |
15 stories matching spring
- A Farmer Denies a Backroom Deal — and Pitches His County's Wheat
W. C. Bush of Bush's Prairie says he may run for the senate to help Thurston County's World's Fair exhibit, but flatly denies the rumor that Judge Robinson ever promised him the seat.
- The Settler Who Watched Olympia Get Claimed
R. C. Smith, who crossed the plains in 1848, recalls the canoe landing where Edmund Sylvester took the claim that became Olympia.
- Orchardists Want Thurston County to Stop Betting on Town Lots
A new horticultural society forms in Olympia, promising experiments in fruit, flowers and prunes—and a future beyond real-estate speculation.
- A Chicago Broker Returns to Find Olympia Unrecognizable
Away for more than two decades, I. I. Hackney marvels at the capital city's real-estate boom, new statehouse ambitions, and the wilderness he once knew as Tacoma.
- The Apple Trees That Sailed From England in a Sea Captain's Cabin
Seeds saved from a farewell dinner in 1833 were planted at Fort Nisqually and grew into the finest apple trees north of the Columbia. Now an editor wants Tacoma to move them to a park before the squirrels of Rosston are their only company.
- The Town Where Horses Wore Wooden Shoes
La Conner grew slowly on a rocky knoll in the Skagit delta, diked its tidal flats, and shipped out hay by the ton—while its horses clumped through spring mud in wooden moccasins.
- 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 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 Engineer Who Says Olympia Stiffed Him for Sewer Plans
A civil engineer hired to draft Olympia’s sewers says the city accepted his $700 bid, starved him of data, then canceled his contract and paid another man $1,500 for plans he calls a public nuisance.
- He Kept a Dead Man's Skull as a Souvenir — and the Paper Printed the Story
Writing from North Yakima in 1892, Milburn G. Wills recalls the 1855 volunteer campaign that broke the Yakama resistance — the forced marches, the starving commands, the men shot beside him, and the trophy he carried home.
- The Valley Nobody Surveyed: Pioneers Wait for a Government Pen
A settlers' advocate returns from the surveyor-general with promises and a rapturous account of a hidden valley where poor young farmers are hewing homes out of the forest without so much as a title to their land.
- The Healing Lake That Hid a Walking Fish
On the Columbia plateau near Spokane lies a strange saline lake with no inlet and no outlet — credited with curing rheumatism, foaming like soap in the wind, and home to an axolotl that fooled the naturalists.
- 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.
- 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.