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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1888 | 17 |
| 1889 | 52 |
| 1891 | 22 |
| 1892 | 40 |
| 1893 | 64 |
| 1894 | 75 |
| 1895 | 135 |
405 stories matching portion
- Narrow Escape from Fire in Sultan
A tipped lantern sparks a fire in an upper room, nearly consuming the town's business district.
- Engineer Crushed in Tragic Depot Accident
A Great Northern engineer is seriously injured while assisting with an unloading job at the local depot.
- The Unkind Spring of 1892
A biting cold snap across the Washington territory freezes out the fruit harvest and stalls farm work.
- Waterfront Wharf Collapses Into The Bay
Decaying piles succumb to teredos, dumping 50,000 feet of lumber into the Elliott Bay waterfront.
- Violence in the Opium Dens of Colfax
A brutal feud between laborers in a remote Eastern Washington opium joint ends in a horrific shooting and a manhunt.
- Western Washington’s Spring Floods
Heavy rains and rising rivers in the Skagit, Fraser, and Columbia valleys damage crops and farmland.
- Engineering Tacoma's Waterfront
Tacoma will build a $20,000 bridge to its new filled waterfront, where teredo worms eat untreated pilings.
- Senator Squire Appeals for Fire Relief
Washington Senator Watson C. Squire petitions the Department of Agriculture to prioritize fire-ravaged Whatcom County for seed distribution.
- The War on Lice in the Hop Fields
A local hop merchant reveals the specific, labor-intensive chemical formula needed to save the crop from blight.
- Seattle’s Crumbling Infrastructure Crisis
City Engineer R.H. Thomson warns that the city’s aging wooden box sewers are on the verge of collapse, threatening the streets above.
- The Great Reconstruction: Seattle’s Waterfront Rises from the Ashes
Less than a month after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, the city’s wharves are a hive of frantic, round-the-clock labor to restore the vital commerce of the Pacific.
- The Great Rent Refund Fight
A landmark Seattle court case establishes a precedent for tenants demanding rent back after their buildings are destroyed.
- The Death of Whitechapel: Great Northern’s Seattle Land Grab
A major expansion of the Great Northern railway threatens to erase the working-class district of Whitechapel to build a central passenger depot.
- The Shingle Mill Fires of Buckley
A wave of suspicious midnight blazes targets the vital lumber infrastructure of Pierce County, leaving mill owners and workers on edge.
- The 1889 Land Rush for West Seattle
Before the neighborhood was built, land agents were selling the dream of a 'gigantic smelter' and a booming future to investors on the waterfront.
- A Road Through the Barn: Drunk Commissioners and a Judge's Rebuke
A Snohomish County road crew moves to cut a highway through T. Larson's house and barn; testimony says two commissioners were too drunk to inspect the route.
- Seattle Starts Building Its Own Ground
Contractors drive the first piles in the tide flats, launching a massive fill project that will remake the city’s waterfront and industrial south end.
- The West Seattle Gold Rush: How a Quarter-Mile of Waterfront Changed the City's Map
While miners chased gold in Okanogan and politicians debated Indian reservations, a new addition called 'West Seattle' was platted with water front lots for as little as $75, promising to beat all other additions.
- The Settler's Hunger for the Moses Reservation
An 1891 report from Colville showcases the era's aggressive push to seize Indigenous land for white settlement, detailing the minerals and rich soil the state's residents felt belonged to them rather than the tribes.
- The City That Forgot to Flush: Seattle’s Shameful Sewer Crisis
As the population surges toward 40,000, an editorial warns that neglecting public health infrastructure is a 'crime' waiting for a deadly summer.
- Engineering a Solution for Hagerty Creek
The City of Snohomish seeks to tame a flooding creek by tunneling through a hill at the foot of Union Avenue.
- The Roslyn Wedding Brawl
A double wedding in the Hungarian quarter of Roslyn devolved into a chaotic riot involving knives and heavy drinking.
- The Clearing of Whitechapel
In April 1892, Seattle’s police chief launched a moral crusade to shutter the 'cribs' of Whitechapel, forcing residents into the shadows and signaling an early chapter in the city's long history of displacing vulnerable communities.
- The Hill That Couldn't Be Saved: Fire Chief Pleads for Water on Seattle’s Steepest Slopes
In a stark report from June 1904, Chief Joshua Phillips warns that the city’s volunteer fire brigade is powerless against blazes in the steep upper districts, where gravity defeats their hoses and time kills buildings.
- The Political Erasure of Lewis County
Citizens in rural Washington cry foul as the 1889 constitutional convention districting map threatens to strip their county of political representation.