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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1899 | 24 |
24 stories matching play
- The Boy Who Played with Fire: A Seattle Tragedy on Hart Avenue
A young boy’s fatal experiment with powder and a lit candle has left his family in mourning and the neighborhood in shock.
- The King Who Played Poker with the Speaker
King Edward VII’s legendary skill at the card table reveals a surprising side of the British monarch during his 1905 American tour.
- A Tragedy at the Duwamish River
A four-year-old child loses his life in a tragic accident along the banks of the Duwamish River.
- The Tragic Cost of a Neighborhood Game
A young boy's chase after a ball ends in a freak, fatal accident in Bellingham.
- The Mayor’s Raid: Seattle’s Gambling Houses Shut Down in One Night
Mayor Hume and Police Chief Sullivan execute a council resolution, closing every known gaming parlor in the city. Was it moral reform or a power play against saloon owners?
- A Two-Year-Old's Fatal Fall From an East Seattle Wharf
A two-year-old girl drowns after falling from a Seattle wharf, a grim reminder of the city's rapidly expanding waterfront dangers.
- The Uncultivated Yankee and the Professor's Sword
A late-night brawl breaks out in the rotunda of Seattle’s most prestigious hotel after a visiting musician insults an American sea captain.
- The Gambling Den Dilemma: Why Seattle’s Top Detective Fought the Ban on Vice
When City Council shut down gambling houses to clean up the streets, Detective Corbett warned that vice wouldn't disappear—it would just scatter and hide.
- The Vanishing of Little Nellie: Seattle’s Gypsy Panic
In June 1903, the disappearance of a toddler in West Seattle sparked a city-wide manhunt and deep-seated prejudice against a traveling circus troupe.
- The Disappearance of Harry Lombard
A sober and industrious logger vanishes into the dense woods near Enumclaw with a fortune in his pocket, sparking a community-wide hunt for a murderer.
- 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 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.
- The Judge and the Tenderloin: A Seattle Courtroom Showdown
A Seattle judge loses his temper and issues contempt orders against local law enforcement and the prosecution during a chaotic hearing involving a robbery in the city’s notorious Tenderloin district.
- The False Gold of 'Swiftwater' Bill
A legendary Klondike miner, once a symbol of immense wealth, is revealed to be a 'broken man' after a public charade of riches in the American West.
- Seattle’s Fourth of July Gets a Cash Injection: $5,000 for Fireworks, $300 for the Parade
As crowds from across Puget Sound descend on the city, the Fourth of July Committee has slashed its budget estimates to fund a 'big' celebration, appealing to residents for immediate donations to cover the shortfall.
- The City That Couldn't Say No: Seattle’s Fourth of July Extravaganza
In the summer of 1903, Seattle invited the entire Northwest to a Fourth of July celebration so massive it threatened to break the city's capacity for hospitality.
- The Open Secret: Seattle's Booming Gambling District
While city authorities collected monthly fines, three major gambling houses operated in plain sight on the Seattle waterfront, catering to thousands of working men and sailors.
- The Cake-Walk Controversy: When Morality Met Modernity in Bellevue
A local violinist’s moral objection to a high school charity dance nearly sparked a riot, dividing the town between tradition and progress.
- The Church Fair Scandal: When Seattle’s Clergy Played Prank on a Congregation
A reverend and his colleagues turned a charity fundraiser into an elaborate joke, dressing two women in 'shabbily' clothes to perform a 'Irish spectacle'—only for the punchline to backfire spectacularly.
- The Deaf-Mute’s Heartbreak: A Love Letter Written in Silence
When his fiancée left him for another man, a silent young man from Memphis found his voice through ink, delivering a scathing indictment of his rival to a Seattle city editor.
- The Policeman, the Whiskey, and the Sober Pigeons
A Seattle officer's attempt to trap church-dwelling pigeons using liquor-soaked corn ended in a hilariously humiliating failure when the birds refused to lose their composure.
- The Iron-Molded Suit: When Tailors Pressed Clothes Onto Your Body
A bizarre new fashion trend in Seattle has women wrapping themselves in hot irons to 'mold' their suits into shape.
- The Great Nude Debate: When Seattle’s Church Ladies Tried to Save Their Living Pictures
A fundraising gala at Christ Episcopal Church descended into moral panic when vestrymen declared 'living pictures' (nude art) too scandalous for the pulpit, forcing a cancellation that left donors furious and ladies defiant.
- The Grant Street Crash: Who Killed the Passenger?
A deadly collision between a streetcar and a Northern Pacific train at Grant Street has sparked outrage. The Seattle Star argues that 'homebody' passengers are to blame for ignoring safety, while demanding accountability from the railway companies.