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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1891 | 9 |
| 1892 | 6 |
15 stories matching titl
- The Seattle Lawyer Who Argued Both Sides of the Tide-Land Question
Colonel J. C. Haines told one court that Washington could grant title to the Dr. Maynard tract and another that the United States cannot grant title to tide lands — leaving 360 acres of Seattle's waterfront frozen until the supreme court settles it.
- A Bishop Claimed 430 Acres of a Federal Military Reservation
The Roman Catholic Bishop of Nesqually went to the U.S. Supreme Court to secure title to the Vancouver military reservation, setting church, Crown-era permission, and federal ownership against one another.
- Her Wages Bought the House at Fourth and Plum. The Sheriff’s Deed Was Canceled.
Elizabeth Burkett turned a $700 gift into a hotel and a home. When a Pierce County judgment against her husband threatened it, a Thurston County judge traced the property back to her own labor.
- 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.
- 130 Waterfront Owners, and Nobody Knows Where Their Land Is
A boom-era plat, a harbor replatted by the state without regard to it, and a tide land commission trying to untangle the mess at Whatcom before the courts get it.
- The Donation Claim That Ended in Murder—and Took Decades to Settle
A federal land ruling near Sumner untangles decades of inheritance, foreclosure, and a killing tied to a donation claim first filed in 1853.
- The Tax Assessors' Cold Shoulder
Washington's county assessors struggle to find a warm place to meet, eventually retreating to the State Auditor's office to set property valuation standards.
- A Sailor’s Memory of the 1841 Fourth of July
Before Seattle, Tacoma, or Olympia existed, the Wilkes Expedition celebrated Independence Day on the prairies near Fort Nisqually with a roasted ox and brass howitzers.
- A Mayor Willing to Resign Over a Ballot Technicality
When Olympia’s election tickets were printed under the wrong law, Mayor Horr offered to step down rather than hold office on a legal loophole—and urged the council to appoint the people’s chosen successors.
- A Missing Lawyer, a $350 Deed, and the North Olympia Land Scheme
With Attorney D. P. Ballard absent, Olympia lawyers are tracing suspicious transfers in a platted addition—land already sold to dozens of owners, now used as security for a $4,000 mortgage.
- 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.
- One Coal-Oil Dealer Is Holding Olympia's New Electric Railway Hostage for $10,000
The streetcar line is contracted, the rails are shipped and the crews are ready — but George Marvin Savage's outfit sits squarely in the middle of Main Street, and he will not budge for less than ten thousand dollars.
- The Ox-Yoke Judge Who Kept Olympia the Capital
O. C. Hewitt, Lincoln’s chief justice of Washington Territory and the father of Odd Fellowship in the state, died at 82 in East Tumwater after a frontier life that included burying massacre victims, winning a Supreme Court case, and saving Olympia’s capital status.
- 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.
- The Town That Grew in Ninety Days—and Then Waited for the Railroad
In 1890, promoters carved Anacortes out of the Fidalgo Island forest, sold lots at galloping prices, and promised a transcontinental rail terminal. Two years later, the trains still stopped short and the company wharf was closed to the public.