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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1888 | 3 |
| 1889 | 5 |
| 1892 | 5 |
| 1893 | 4 |
| 1894 | 11 |
| 1895 | 7 |
35 stories matching avert
- A Local Cable Car Strike Averted
Workers on the Madison Street line negotiate a contract to avoid a walkout as the company faces financial instability.
- A Courtroom Brawl Narrowly Averted
Tempers flared between attorneys John F. Dore and Will E. Humphrey outside the courthouse following a heated trial.
- Disaster Averted at the Franklin Mines
A broken cable sends an empty coal car plunging into the depths of a flooded mine, barely missing a catastrophic accident for the workers.
- The Mayor vs. The Board of Health
Mayor Ronald demands the resignation of Seattle's health board in a bitter clash over political control and professional autonomy.
- The Great Stuck River Jam: A Battle Over Water and Land
In a tense standoff on the White River, Pierce County cattlemen illegally dammed the waterway to protect their pastures, forcing King County officials to ride out with Winchester rifles to avert a violent conflict.
- Trolley Car Disaster Narrowly Averted
A construction car derails near Lake Washington, trapping a man in the mud.
- The Streetcar Superintendent Who Made a Hard Job Less Arduous
When Superintendent Clark resigned from Seattle’s Consolidated street car lines, employees remembered him as the man who averted a strike by treating car men like people.
- The Price of a Teaming Business
A pre-dawn blaze in Centralia destroys a feed barn and stables, claiming the lives of the teamsters' horses and revealing the high stakes of early Seattle-area transport labor.
- The Telegraph Strike That Wasn't
When Western Union messenger boys in Seattle attempted to organize for better pay, management crushed the effort in a single afternoon.
- Mutiny Averted Aboard the Cutter Grant
A new recruit refuses to drill, but the crew’s rapid display of loyalty convinces their captain of their patriotism.
- Scarlet Fever Sets Seattle's School Board Against Its Health Board
With scarlet fever alarming physicians, the board of health claims power to close the public schools—and the school board is not convinced the charter gives it that right.
- A Launch, a Leaking Tank, and Eight Tourists Who Nearly Died on Lake Washington
A gasoline explosion aboard J. B. MacDougall's launch off the Madison Street landing nearly turns an Alaska reunion into a catastrophe — no life preservers, no bars, and flames between the double hull.
- The City’s Scrip Solution
With municipal bonds stalled during the 1893 depression, Seattle weighs paying workers in city-issued scrip to keep public projects moving.
- Tacoma's Labor Council Pledges to Keep Chinese Out For Good
Invoking the same 'Committee of Fifteen' that drove the city's Chinese residents out in 1885, the Tacoma Trades Council passes resolutions to block any return and calls an anti-Chinese mass meeting.
- The Nuns Were One Foreclosure Away From the Street
A $10,000 loan from Montreal saves Seattle's House of the Good Shepherd, where 54 children and 32 penitent women live and barely five of them pay a cent.
- The Sabotage of Black Lake
A malicious attempt to breach a dike and flood the Olympia countryside by draining a massive volume of water into the Deschutes River was narrowly averted.
- Streetcar Workers Asked City Hall to Mandate 21 Cents an Hour
Seattle’s street railway employees accused aldermen of burying their wage petition after a committee report was declared adopted—then reversed under pressure.
- The Miracle at the Bend
An engineer’s harrowing account of a toddler playing on the tracks, the desperate silence of the brakes, and an inexplicable survival.
- The Toy-Pistol Jailbreak That Left a Killer at Large
A Seattle editorial seethes over technical delays and comfortable cells after confessed murderer Thomas Blanck walks out of the King County Jail with its keys and revolvers.
- The Great Seattle Fire: A Military Account of the Ruins
Colonel Haines recounts the chaos, the failed efforts to contain the 1889 fire with explosives, and the deployment of the National Guard to maintain order amidst the ashes.
- The Day Seattle Stood Still: A Century of Celebration on the Frontier
On July 4, 1897, Governor John H. Temple welcomed thousands of visitors to a parade so massive it stretched half a mile long, featuring floats from local industries and veterans of the Spanish-American War.
- Snohomish Wants Its Health Officer Gone as Smallpox Closes In
A mass meeting demands Dr. McCready resign, the new pesthouse burns down overnight, and a pauper patient dies — all while the state threatens to quarantine the town.
- The $3 Million Strike: How the Great Northern Railway Bet on Breaking Workers
In the winter of 1893, the railroad’s board calculated that paying workers less was cheaper than losing millions to a strike. They were right—and Seattle paid the price.
- The Day Two Houses Fell on Their Owners: A Seattle Collapse That Should Have Killed Everyone
W.H. Burrett’s attempt to raise two frame buildings for renovation turned into a nightmare when the structures collapsed onto workmen and families below, leaving only miraculous luck to keep the death toll at zero.
- 'The Railroads Have Had It Long Enough'
A railroad-rate bill passed the House almost unanimously and now sits in the Senate, where the Post-Intelligencer warns that any man who stands between the people and the railroads will be crushed — and notes the governor can call an extra session if the legislature balks.
Also about this, in other words
- A Captain Tries Twice to Die—and Walks Home
Capt. Alfred Garton took morphine, then a bullet, in an Occidental Hotel room. Both failed, and his letter blamed a fortune in real estate that no one would buy.