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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1899 | 436 |
436 stories
- The Day the Kingston Died: A Steamship Collision and the Pilot’s Tale
Pilot Gatter recounts the terrifying moments when the steamer Glenogle collided with the passenger liner Kingston in Puget Sound, sending hundreds of feet of steel into the water.
- A Seattle Streetcar Killing Sparks Calls for Lynching
A labor dispute turns violent in the streets of Seattle, nearly triggering a riot outside a trolley line's offices.
- The Ghost Who Walked Home: A Soldier’s Return from the Dead
William Krull, presumed dead in the Philippines and replaced by his own wife, walks into a Seattle church to find her remarried. His reaction? He leaves town to live out his days alone.
- The Bear That Wasn't: Seattle’s War Department Scandal
A federal court of inquiry clears the city of corruption but exposes a bizarre military blunder involving refrigerated beef and embalmed meat during the Spanish-American War.
- The Day Farmers Blew Up a Dam
In a bold act of agrarian rebellion on the Fourth of July, Stuck River farmers used dynamite to destroy the White River dam, draining the muck and reclaiming their land.
- The Day Smallpox Walked the Streets: How One Man’s Ignorance Sparked Spokane’s Deadliest Epidemic
A drunk man wandering through downtown Spokane with a rash on his face nearly triggered a disaster that killed hundreds—until a sharp-eyed pharmacist stepped in.
- The Vigilante Committee: Tacoma's Desperate War on Crime
In March 1902, Tacoma’s elite formed a secret society sworn to kill without mercy after police failed to stop a wave of robberies and murders.
- The Saloon Wars: How Seattle’s Council Killed the Fight to Ban Bars from Residential Streets
In a heated March 1904 council meeting, reformers fought to keep saloons off streets where wives and children walked. The measure failed, revealing deep corruption and the powerful grip of liquor interests on city government.
- The Acid Attack That Shook Seattle: A Woman’s Face Destroyed by Jealousy
Mrs. M.K. McVean is blind and critically injured after an unknown assailant threw vitriol in her face, sparking a bizarre chain of events involving mailed candy and a jealous rival.
- Death Reared Its Horrid Head: Steam Heater Explosion Kills Two Men in Downtown Seattle
A careless Japanese fireman left a boiler unattended at Second and Washington, causing a catastrophic explosion that killed one man instantly and mortally wounded another.
- The $12.50 Gold Rush: How a Railroad Rate War Flooded Seattle with Hope and Skepticism
As Canadian Pacific slashes fares to half the price of American lines, local merchants debate whether the coming wave of homeseekers will build the city or break it.
- The Letter That Never Came: A Seattle Man’s Despair Over a Broken Heart
E.A. Kilder took his own life at the Hotel Metropole after missing a crucial message from his sweetheart, leaving behind only a tragic note to his brother.
- The Confession of a Century: Allen Hewitt Admits to Poisoning a Rival
Prominent Seattle attorney and son of the city's namesake dies at his father's home after confessing to a murder committed decades ago in Spokane.
- The Gold Rush That Wasn't: Copper River’s Scurvy Epidemic and the Ghosts of the Valdez Glacier
As Seattleites debated housing and labor, a grim report arrived from the interior: men dying of scurvy in the Copper River country, and the recovered bodies of seven explorers who froze to death on the Valdez glacier.
- The Cedar River Siege: How a Power Mogul Tried to Steal Seattle’s Water
Seattle Star exposes the Snoqualmie Falls Power Company’s dirty game: using fake environmental panic to block municipal water rights and crush competition.
- The Council Strikes Back: Seattle Turns on Its Own Power Company
Mayor Humes vetoes saloon restrictions, but the City Council is far more concerned with a corporate power grab. They launch an investigation into the Snoqualmie Falls Power Co., accusing it of using legal injunctions to block the city’s water supply contracts and protect its private interests.
- The Power Struggle for Seattle’s Future
As the city council investigates the Cedar River water rights dispute, a fierce corporate war erupts between the Snoqualmie Falls Power Company and the Union Electric Company, threatening to monopolize the region's energy supply.
- Seattle’s City Council Rejects Public Power in Favor of Private Monopoly
In a decisive vote that prioritized corporate interests over municipal control, Seattle leaders refused to condemn the city's water supply, effectively handing power to private developers.
- The Tragedy at Yesler Way: A Lawyer’s Death and a Woman’s Despair
In May 1904, prominent Seattle lawyer J. Wile was fatally shot by Miss Burke, who then took her own life in a rooming house near the waterfront.
- The Last Laugh of Charles Nordstrom
As the Seattle Star reports on May 15, 1899, condemned murderer Charles Nordstrom sits in his cell, seemingly indifferent to the death warrant signed that morning. While the legal machinery grinds toward his execution for the murder of a police officer, one man’s sarcastic smile and contemptuous silence speak louder than any final prayer.
- Telescoped at the Crossing: A Grant Street Horror
When a Northern Pacific freight train plowed into an electric streetcar on May 20, 1909, one man died and dozens were mangled in the icy water below. The crash exposed dangerous speeds and negligent watchmen at a city intersection that remains vital today.
- The Branding of a Child in a Seattle Blacksmith Shop
A young boy, terrorized and silent, comes home with a 'fiery red' brand scorched into his body, allegedly by three men at a local forge.
- The First Strike Against the Eight-Hour Day
Contractors are already looking for loopholes in the new Washington state labor law, sparking a legal showdown between building firms and the Western Central Labor Union.
- The Great Timber Truce: Tacoma Mills Shut Down for a Week to Save Prices
In a rare display of unity, Tacoma’s logging camps and sawmills have agreed to a seven-day shutdown. While workers face temporary unemployment, the industry claims this 'paradoxical' move is the only way to prevent lumber prices from collapsing.
- The Heat That Broke the Girls: A Seattle Summer of Hysteria
In June 1902, a sweltering afternoon in downtown Seattle turned a garment factory into a scene of mass panic as workers collapsed from heat prostration.