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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1888 | 1 |
| 1889 | 6 |
| 1892 | 4 |
| 1893 | 7 |
| 1894 | 1 |
| 1895 | 5 |
24 stories matching pretext
- The Political Flip-Flop over the Lake Washington Canal
A scathing editorial exposes the hypocrisy of a Tacoma publisher using the canal project as a pawn in a larger Republican party feud.
- Shanghaied in Tacoma
A waterfront boarding house keeper is caught in the act of kidnapping a sailor in Tacoma.
- A Local Reputation at Stake
Bertha Denton fights back against media portrayals, threatening a slander suit following reports about her actions at Camp Murray.
- The Fight for 'Japanese Jennie'
A Spokane court battles a Montana requisition order for a woman held under a restrictive labor contract, marking a local test of indentured servitude.
- The House-Worker's Manual
As police struggle with a crime wave, residents discover that daylight burglars are using coded notebooks to track their movements.
- The Dark Secrets of a Deathbed Will
A Centralia druggist claims his arrest on fraud charges is a retaliation for his testimony regarding a coerced deathbed will that disinherited a dying man to benefit his doctor.
- Vagrants or Working Men? The Battle Over Municipal Justice
Seattle's police chief accuses a judge of letting 'dangerous characters' roam free, while the court clerk argues for leniency toward the unemployed.
- The Shadowy Campaign for Seattle's Waterfront
Before the city was fully formed, a powerful railroad lobby attempted to secure the lucrative tide-lands of Elliott Bay through backroom deals.
- A Social Break at Black Diamond
A local church breaks with 'sepulchral' tradition by hosting a social gathering that crosses racial and social lines.
- The Scandal of the 'Superba' Company
An actress fights back after her employer allegedly orchestrated a smear campaign to fire her without cause.
- The Tacoma Check-Kite Who Vanished Into Thin Air
A mysterious stranger from San Francisco duped local merchants out of hundreds of dollars with worthless drafts before disappearing, leaving a trail of broken trust in the heart of downtown Tacoma.
- A Wife Followed Her Husband to Tacoma. Then She Swallowed Laudanum.
William Woodard's wife tracked him from Portland to the Auburn House, where she found him living with Mollie Agnew. A suicide attempt, an adultery charge and a stack of newspaper clippings followed.
- The Front Street Fraud: How Seattle's Council Sold Its Soul for a Cable Car
An editorial outcry accuses city officials of corruption in the approval of a lucrative franchise for a non-resident corporation, warning that the public interest is being sacrificed for private profit.
- The Tide Flat Grabbers: Seattle’s Fight for Its Own Shoreline
As the statehood deadline looms, a fierce editorial battle erupts over who owns the valuable mudflats of Elliott Bay—speculators or the public?
- Katie Hackworth Vanished From School. Her Parents Say a Procuress Took Her.
A habeas corpus petition accuses Mrs. Ollie Ryther of luring 14-year-old Katie from the Pacific school with presents and money and holding her for 'purposes of vice.'
- The Sheriff Who Stood Alone: Cochrane’s Standoff with Federal Deputies
King County Sheriff Sidney S. Cochrane defied U.S. Marshals at the Oregon Improvement Company’s Newcastle coal mine, sparking a local crisis that ended only when federal and state authorities refused to back his arrest.
- The King Who Wasn't: How Seattle Watched a Pacific Empire Betray Its Own
While the city prepares for its own boom, a local editorial warns that American honor is being sacrificed to German ambition in Samoa—and asks if Washingtonians care enough to stop it.
- The Judge Who Declared Unions Illegal
In a landmark charge to the grand jury in 1893, Chief Justice Thomas Burke declared that any combination of workers preventing employment was a 'conspiracy against the law of the land,' effectively criminalizing the labor movement before Washington even became a state.
- The Tacoma Gold Rush That Was Salted With Quicksilver
A mining journal exposes how placer claims on Tacoma school land turned a public trust into a speculative jackpot—complete with imported gold, alleged bribery, and a land office that kept saying yes.
- Seattle to Ottawa: Hands Off Alaska
The Chamber of Commerce refused arbitration over Britain's boundary claims, warning that Canada was trying to take Alaska's harbors and the young city's northern trade.
- The Man Who Robbed Seattle's Fire Relief Fund Walked Out of Prison on Friday
Five years after the great fire of 1889 turned Seattle to ash, the secretary trusted to hand out relief money — an inspector who forged checks to invented men — finished his sentence and went free, his full take never known.
- The Union Veteran Who Sued the Railroad for a Million-Dollar Tacoma
Anthony P. Carr says Northern Pacific agents helped a claim-jumper steal his homestead. More than a thousand Tacoma lots—and the people living on them—depend on what the Supreme Court decides.
- The Yesler Will Case: A Dead Millionaire, a Missing Will, and a Widow on Trial
In a Seattle courtroom, prosecutors argue that Mrs. Yesler conspired to destroy her husband's will—while defense lawyers call the case a web of speculation and newspaper rumor.
- The Missing Will That Would Have Given Seattle a Library
Henry Yesler's widow and two doctors are arrested, accused of burning a will that left the pioneer's fortune—and his mansion—to the city.
Also about this, in other words
- The Lawyer and the Imposter
Attorney James E. Morrison faces a hearing over allegations he orchestrated a fraudulent pre-emption claim using a double.