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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1899 | 36 |
36 stories matching union
- The Iron Fist of Labor: Seattle’s Unions Unite to Control the City
A comprehensive look at the Western Central Labor Union and its affiliated trades—bricklayers, carpenters, and iron workers—who have effectively monopolized construction in Seattle.
- The Tailor's Revolt: Seattle Shops Defy Union Wages
As the local tailors' strike enters its second week with shops shuttered, merchants import labor from abroad to break the union, sparking fears of violent confrontation.
- The Siege of Rock Island Navy Yard
When labor organizers were barred from a meeting with the base commandant, the union workers didn't just back down—they launched a campaign to have him removed from command.
- The Iron Gateway: Seattle's 1890 Vision for a Grand Union Depot
A rare exchange between rail magnates James J. Hill and Northern Pacific leadership confirms the city's ambition to become the primary western terminal for transcontinental trade.
- 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.
- The City’s Missing Depot: A Railway Power Struggle
When the Seattle Star reached out to the Canadian Pacific Railway, they found the railroad giant had no interest in building a union station in the city.
- The Case of the Disappearing Diamond
A waitress at a local union kitchen accuses her suitor of petit larceny after a romantic outing results in a missing gem.
- The Sudden Vanishing of the Union’s Trusted Bookkeeper
A local labor official disappears, leaving behind a mysterious accounting gap and an unanswered question of financial impropriety.
- The Maid’s Rebellion: Servant Girls Organize in Seattle
Tired of long hours and poor working conditions, Seattle's domestic workers launch an early union movement, causing a stir among the city’s elite.
- The Night Watchman’s Leap: A Seattle Police Officer’s Brutal Fall
William Wyatt, the city's night watchman at the Union Station mail depot, suffered broken ribs and internal injuries after falling from a moving train while chasing a thief.
- Serial Arson at the Western Mill
A night watchman thwarts an attempt to burn down a Lake Union mill, marking the third suspicious fire in a single week.
- The Great Alaska Rate War: Seattle’s Shipping Barons Draw the Line
Local steamship companies unite to defy British Columbia carriers, threatening a destructive fare war from Seattle to the Klondike goldfields.
- 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 Million-Dollar Tug-of-War Over Seattle's Waterfront
When two railway titans clashed over the location of a union depot, Seattle's newspapers turned the city's future into a public spectacle of corporate ego and investigative scoops.
- 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 Great Sewer Struggle of 1899
Over 100 residents in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Seattle petitioned the city to stop the dumping of raw sewage into the local lakes.
- The Night They Were Left in the Brush: A Highway Robbery on Third Avenue
Two desperate men held up three victims at gunpoint near the Union Trunk Hotel, binding them in the cold wet brush while a fourth escaped. One victim’s wife walked within twenty feet of the scene, unaware her husband was lying bound nearby.
- The Sunday War in Seattle
A local Christian organization vows to shutter all saloons and theaters on the Sabbath, sparking a defiant clash over public pleasure and civic life.
- The Senator’s Seattle Sojourn: Fairbanks Tours the City Before Heading North
Vice President-elect Charles W. Fairbanks and his entourage spent a whirlwind day in Seattle, touring the Great Northern terminal, Lake Washington, and receiving a civic welcome before departing for Alaska.
- The Farewell Voyage of the Third Cavalry
As the steamship St. Paul prepares to ferry soldiers to the Philippine Islands, Seattle watches its 'brave boys in blue' depart for a war from which many may never return.
- The Empire Builders Eye the Sound
While Seattle citizens dream of a municipal mint and public halls, the Vanderbilt railroad syndicate plots a massive consolidation to dominate Pacific Northwest transit.
- The Fire Fiend Stalks Seattle's Waterfront
A witness spots a mysterious arsonist fleeing the Western Mill in a rowboat, stoking fears of a serial firebug terrorizing the city's timber industry.
- The Sawmill Strike That Never Happened
When mill workers in Seattle banded together for a small wage increase, they didn't need to walk out to get it.
- The Forgotten Addicts of Seattle's Skid Road
A railroad man's harrowing story of dependency reveals the hidden suffering behind the headlines in the turn-of-the-century city.
- The Great Wire War: How Seattle’s Electric Giants Tried to Buy Their Way Out of the Underground
When the City Council threatened to bury power lines underground, Union Electric and Consumers’ Electric screamed ruin. But the real drama wasn't the wires—it was the council dodging a crowd of gamblers and churchgoers demanding saloon closures.