Research the archive
Narrow 27,002 newspaper stories by words, years, place, newspaper and subject. See when and where they ran, then download what you find.
Put a phrase in quotes ("rent strike") or leave a word out with a minus (strike -baseball). Old scans misspell names, so when little is found, near-spellings are offered.
Refine1 on
Show the numbers
| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1897 | 13 |
| 1898 | 18 |
| 1899 | 4 |
35 stories matching may
- The Mortgage Freeze of 1897
New state legislation intended to protect farmers from foreclosure has inadvertently choked off agricultural lending.
- The Berry Math That Made Puyallup
A fruit-growers' manager laid out the 1898 economics of Western Washington berries: $1 a crate, 75-cent hired labor, and a cannery on the horizon.
- Three Bad Years of Hops, and a Trainload of Sheep Pointing the Way Out
Yakima County's hop growers have lost money three seasons running. The remedy, this farm editor argues, is to stop shipping raw hay out of the valley and start feeding it to cattle, hogs and sheep here — as forty carloads bound for Montana just proved.
- A Sheepman Vanishes on the Way Home
A Klickitat County rancher carrying a large sum of cash disappears while attempting to return to Scotland, sparking fears of foul play.
- The $80,000 Cranberry Bog Behind the Ilwaco Beach
A state commissioner tours Pacific County's cranberry marsh — 1,600 acres, 7,280 bushels shipped to San Francisco, 200 pickers at fifty cents a bushel, and a company openly hoping to replace its Chinese crew with white labor.
- The Mountains Closed: Stockmen Fight the Cascade Forest Reserve
Eastern Washington's cattle and sheep men warn that locking up the Cascades as a federal forest reserve would beggar every valley town — and train their anger on the Yakama Reservation boundary, which they want opened to their herds.
- Two Hundred Feet of Solid Rock: The Well That Might End Yakima's Water War
For years, the old settlers of the lower Ahtanum and the newcomers up on the bench lands have fought it out in the Yakima courts over who owns the creek. Now four farmers are betting on an artesian well instead — and paying for it out of their own pockets.
- Hog Cholera Outbreak in Snohomish County Sparks Call for State Action
A Pullman farmer warns that hog cholera has appeared in Snohomish County and urges the legislature to fund measures to contain the disease before it devastates Washington's livestock industry.
- The Rural Route Comes to Stay
Postal inspectors ride the 30-mile Yakima circuit and find 200 mailboxes where there were none — and a carrier pay raise to $400 a year.
- Spokane Had Mining Fever, and the Men Selling the Stock Had the Only Sure Thing
A Yakima correspondent visits Spokane and finds a city where hotel clerks, newsboys and waiter girls are all buying mining shares — and where even Ezra Meeker has traded hops for a stock prospectus.
- The Bug Inspector Who Called Himself a Crank — and Warned That Japanese Oranges Could Wreck Washington's Orchards
A King County insect inspector accuses the state horticultural commissioner of botching a fumigation order, then warns that the scale insects riding in on imported Japanese oranges could become "a curse to one of Washington's greatest industries."
- The Debts a Country Owes Its Farmers — and Its Farmers' Wives
An 1898 farm-column editorial tallies what rural Washington neglects: untrained road supervisors, school directors so illiterate the legislature had to bar them, and farm women who never see a newspaper or a neighbor.
- The Creamery Valleys: A State Dairy Tour Finds Prosperity in Northeast Washington
Washington’s dairy commissioner rides the rails and a river steamer through the Kalispell and Colville valleys, where a new co-operative creamery, purebred Jerseys, and farmers’ butter are remaking the countryside.
- The Railroad Barons and the Range Wars
Northern Pacific executives visit Yakima to defend their controversial new land-leasing system against local sheepmen.
- The Tumbleweed That Threatened Washington's Wheat
In 1898, a state agricultural professor traced an invasive Russian thistle to railway yards and warned that Yakima County was already infested.
- The Wheat Broker Who Vanished With the Proceeds
A Spokane County farmer shipped wheat to a Seattle commission firm and got nothing back. The office was empty, the operator was in San Francisco, and the paper called it deliberate fraud.
- Judge Hanford Draws the Line: Sheep Can't Graze on Railroad Land Without Consent
A federal court ruling in Yakima County upholds the Northern Pacific Railway's right to protect its unenclosed lands from sheep, setting a precedent for property rights and land use in the West.
- A Fruit Grower's Pitch: Stop Sending Cash East — Feed Alaska Instead
Before the Northwest Fruitgrower's Association, S. L. Moore argued that Washington farmers should diversify beyond wheat and prunes, supply Alaska and Western markets, and let the Northern Pacific's traveling fruit exhibit lure settlers west.
- The Farmers' Grange Declares War on the Mortgage System
Washington's State Grange master lays out a platform against credit, monopolies and 'exorbitant per cent profits' — while insisting the order is not political.
- The Dairy Commissioner’s War on Adulterated Food
A Washington dairy official warns that fake honey, poisoned candy, oleomargarine and brewers’ grain are cheating farmers — and demands stronger pure-food laws.
- A 50-Year Teamster Tells the Legislature to Keep Its Hands Off His Wagon Wheels
A Moran Prairie farmer pushes back against a Seattle-backed bill to mandate wide wagon tires, arguing that city men who never drove a loaded team shouldn't legislate for the men who do.
- Six Restaurants, One Sacrificial Lamb: Seattle's War on Fake Butter
Six Seattle restaurants caught passing oleomargarine off as butter cut a deal with the dairy commissioner — but not before white proprietors tried to make the Japanese owner of the California take the fall.
- The Yakima Chicken Fancier Who Saw Forty Cents in Every Lost Chick
Leonard Schott turned a North Yakima business sideline into an incubator-fed poultry ranch, sending broilers to Spokane and diagnosing his chicks with everything from rheumatism to appendicitis.
- The Gospel of the Cow: A Governor Tells Washington Dairymen How to Get Rich
At the state dairymen's convention, Wisconsin's Gov. W. D. Hoard preaches cleanliness, cold wells and the Chicago market — and spins the tale of Carl the German farmer who turned stinking butter into $50,000.
- Yakima's Orchards Weren't Dead After All
After a November cold snap that hit 20 below zero, Yakima Valley growers feared their fruit trees were ruined. By spring, the blossoms told a different story.