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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1888 | 4 |
| 1889 | 3 |
| 1891 | 1 |
| 1892 | 2 |
| 1893 | 6 |
| 1894 | 4 |
| 1895 | 14 |
34 stories matching omit
- The Sudden Birth of Tacoma's Ice Industry
A chance encounter over a warm lemonade led to a major local business venture.
- Forty-One Ships Built on Puget Sound in a Depression Year
Only two oceangoing vessels left the yards in 1894, but smaller launches and schooners kept the Sound's shipwrights working through hard times.
- The Ghost Island of Arcadia
A squatter fights for the right to claim a six-acre island that the federal government officially claims doesn't exist.
- When the Local Paper Cheers the Mob
A governor's push to prosecute the Colfax vigilantes draws a shocking defense from Whitman County newspapers—and a sharp rebuke from The Olympian.
- The Price of a Scandalous Dinner
When the Liberal Club stopped holding dinners at the Tacoma Hotel, the local Ledger newspaper turned its editorial page into a weapon.
- The Oath That Failed: A Chinese Registration Case Collapses
A Seattle federal commissioner rules that deputy collectors had no authority to administer the oath required by the Chinese registration laws—undercutting a perjury charge against Chin Un Chong.
- The Political Price of Free Trade in 1889
As Washington Territory prepared for statehood, a fierce political battle erupted over how the Mills Tariff Bill would impact local timber, coal, and iron industries.
- Drafting Washington’s State Constitution
As the Constitutional Convention approaches its one-month mark, delegates race to finalize the blueprint for the future state, balancing high-minded debate with emotional politicking.
- Humane Society Intervenes in Balloon Stunts
A local organization moves to stop the dangerous practice of forcing animals into high-altitude balloon stunts.
- The Water Works Betrayal
Tacoma citizens feel duped after voting for a massive bond issue to purchase a water plant under the false promise of a new railroad to Mount Rainier.
- City Council Caught in Costly Pipe Scandal
Seattle’s city fathers accused of wasting thousands of dollars by rejecting cheap, high-quality pipe in favor of a politically connected supplier.
- The Law That Vanished Overnight
When a new legislative act replaced the state's logger's lien law, it inadvertently vaporized the legal standing of workers fighting for their unpaid wages.
- When Seattle Society Turned Shakespeare Into a Skirt-Dance Spectacle
The Seattle Athletic Club packed Cordray's Theater for three nights with an all-local Shakespeare travesty, imported costumes, and a cameo from 'everybody' in society.
- The Great Washington Delay: How Congress Stalled Statehood for a Political Game
In January 1889, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an 'Omnibus Bill' to admit four territories as states, but fierce partisan fighting over Dakota and Montana left Washington Territory in limbo—delaying its entry into the Union by nearly two years.
- A Fireman Died in a Flood-Swollen Culvert. Now His Widow Wants the Railroad to Pay.
E. G. Cole left a widow and three daughters, including six-month-old twins. His estate is suing the Oregon Improvement Company for $12,480, alleging the company ran a train through a flooded, defective roadbed.
- The Estate That Outran Its Will
A New York inheritance officer comes to Port Townsend to sort out Ansel White's estate, where a will written before the money arrived may leave dozens of cousins fighting over a fortune.
- Washington Kept Dodging Its Own Congressional Map
After the 1890 census gave Washington a second representative, the state spent years avoiding the required division into two congressional districts.
- A Missing Clause Stalls the Road Through the Cascades
Whatcom and Skagit expected a governor's commission and an early start. The enrolled bill in Olympia had lost its emergency clause, and the delay was already being blamed on the wrong people.
- The Railroads Wanted a Senator, and They Worked Olympia to Get Him
A Republican paper accuses John L. Wilson of backing a railroad-friendly bill while transcontinental lines quietly lobby the legislature to send him to the U.S. Senate — and Tacoma's A.P.A. splits over the fight.
- Two Railroads Cut a Deal Through Ballard
The Ballard council ratified a track-swap agreement between the Seattle & Montana and the Lake Shore & Eastern, settling access to Shilshole Avenue and the mills.
- The Great Assessment Scam: How King County Taxpayers Were Fooled by 'Blunders'
A local reporter exposes the absurdity of county tax assessments, where landowners receive notices for huge back-taxes on property they already paid off, forcing them to chase down exhausted commissioners in a cycle of bureaucratic error.
- The Day Seattle Swallowed 10,000 Strangers: The Great Fourth of July Flood
In 1888, the Territory of Washington threw its biggest-ever Independence Day celebration. Steamers arrived loaded with visitors until the streets were so packed that police could barely move. Here is how Seattle hosted a crowd that nearly burst its seams.
- A Christmas Auction That Fell Short—and a Mother Sent Home
Donations expected to bring $600 fetch only $158.40, but the Bureau of Associated Charities still outfits 100 families and buys a destitute mother a ticket to Kansas City.
- The Engineer Who Had the City by the Throat
In a bitter 1909 standoff over Seattle’s waterworks, engineer Benezet Williams accused city officials of squeezing him into submission after they canceled his contract. The advisory board’s final offer left him with little choice but to walk away.
- What and Where Is Puget Sound?
A church naming dispute over a new Episcopal bishopric spirals into a history lesson on the waterway's true boundaries — and how mapmakers, old settlers and Congress each drew the line differently.