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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1888 | 2 |
| 1889 | 3 |
| 1891 | 1 |
| 1892 | 1 |
| 1893 | 2 |
| 1894 | 9 |
| 1895 | 5 |
23 stories matching paragraph
- The City’s Botched Annexation Plan
Seattle’s attempt to annex surrounding lands hits a legal wall after a drafting error excludes parts of Ballard by mistake.
- 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 Manufactured 'Venice of America'
A writer discovers his picturesque essay on the Sound country was secretly rewritten into a promotional advertisement for Tacoma.
- The Battle of Yesler’s Wharf
When an opposition newspaper accused Seattle’s steamboatmen of being 'bogus' voters, the local press fought back to defend the right of the working class to define the city’s political future.
- The Whispered Land Grab in Whitman County's School Lands
A state land official reports that valuable school lands were leased for 'trifling sums' through a secret arrangement involving county commissioners, a Colfax lawyer and a banker—but stops short of naming names.
- The Newspaper Letter That Nearly Started a Fight in the Washington Senate
With the U.S. Senate election deadlocked in Olympia, a Pierce County senator read a rival’s letter aloud — and the chamber erupted over money, lobbyists, and borrowed favors.
- The Mysterious Case of the Missing Fan
A high-society mix-up at a Seattle art exposition sparks a frantic search, a secret engagement, and a lesson in the dangers of public gossip.
- Tacoma's Waterworks: A Buyback Offer Raises Eyebrows
Former owner C.B. Wright offers to repurchase the city's water plant—and a $50,000 commission to the man who brokers the deal—as contempt proceedings against city officials continue.
- The Circular of Rumors That Landed a Minister in Court
A four-hour Seattle libel hearing ends with Rev. M. H. Nichols bound over after he admits his charges against Rev. Dr. T. E. Ford were built on hearsay.
- Seattle Tried to Set a 20-Cent Wage Floor for Streetcar Workers. Its Own Lawyer Said No.
In 1894, aldermen tried to use street-railway franchises to force companies to pay employees at least 20 cents an hour. The city's corporation counsel called it unconstitutional, and the measure failed.
- The $100,000 Gamble on a Seattle Ship Canal
A federal river-and-harbor bill would set aside money for locks linking Puget Sound to Lake Union and Lake Washington—if Seattle's right-of-way and liability problems could be solved first.
- The Dry Party That Wanted Woman Suffrage, Equal Pay and Public Railroads
One hundred and fifty Prohibitionists from thirteen Washington counties met in Tacoma in 1894 and wrote a platform that went far beyond liquor — endorsing votes for women, equal wages regardless of sex, government ownership of railroads and telegraphs, and the forfeiture of unearned land grants.
- The Great Road War: How Kitsap County Bribed Its Way to Steal Seattle’s Trade
While Seattle merchants sneer at their neighbors, a secret fund has been raised in Olympia to build a direct road from Olalla to the Sound, bypassing Tacoma and threatening Seattle's commercial dominance.
- The City That Couldn't Build: A Letter from a Frustrated Investor
In February 1889, an anonymous writer lambasts Seattle’s Common Council for failing to establish street grades, arguing that this bureaucratic paralysis is the primary reason developers are withholding capital and leaving the city in a building slump.
- The Merchant, the Night Transfer and the Missing Man
Eighteen creditors accuse Simon Rumpf of hiding goods, diamonds and a Lake Washington ranch as his Richmond Palace business collapses.
- Mrs. ‘Jumbo’ Cantwell Comes Home: Swollen Feet, a Stolen $100, and the Remains of Coxey’s Army
The Tacoma woman returns from the Commonwealers’ march with dropsy-swollen feet, $1.15 to her name, and a story about the Seattle branch secretary who ran off with her daughter’s stocking money.
- A Hospital Takes Shape in a Rented Building
A charitable board leases the Avon building near Cedar Street and calls on churchwomen to furnish and oversee Seattle’s new general hospital.
- Who Gets to Run Seattle's Streetcars?
A proposed thirty-year franchise for the Consolidated Street Railway cleared its first reading at city hall, but fights over fares, paving and transfers were far from over.
- A Widow’s Two Wills, a Husband’s Challenge, and a Fortune Tied to Seattle
Dr. Aaron Baldwin contests the estate of Lena Shay Baldwin, arguing that property left to her Seattle siblings was really his—and that the case belongs in Washington, D.C., not King County.
- A Hanging in the Armory: The Unpopular Corporal and the Men Who Stuffed His Uniform
Company E turned a grudge into theatre — an effigy rigged with an electric-light wire, a pair of odd-coloured glasses and a chalked gravestone — and a military court may follow.
- A Revolver at the Polls: Seattle’s Republican Primary Erupts
Seattle’s Republican primaries collapsed into shouting, challenged voters, fake tickets and a police chief drawing his revolver to declare the polls open.
- Bismarck’s Bluff: Germany Claims Samoa While Washington Watches
As the German Chancellor declares no treaty prevents his nation from seizing control of the Pacific islands, U.S. officials in Washington struggle to respond to a diplomatic crisis that threatens American interests across the ocean.
- The Mugwump’s Ledger: How Seattle’s Territorial Secretary Gamed the Law Printing Contract
A fierce editorial exposes Secretary Owings for delaying the publication of territorial laws to favor a cronies’ printing bid, while padding the bill with 40 pages of his own party platform.