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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1888 | 2 |
| 1889 | 1 |
| 1891 | 1 |
| 1892 | 3 |
| 1893 | 5 |
| 1894 | 3 |
| 1895 | 6 |
21 stories matching sumner
- The Horse, the Furniture, and the Sumner Theft
An abandoned horse and a cache of furniture tie a Sumner arrest to a grand-larceny investigation.
- The Borrowed Buggy and the Secret Flight to Sumner
A woman hires a horse and buggy for a short ride, but instead takes a man and a child on a 30-mile journey to Sumner, where they are arrested as supposed horse thieves.
- The Sudden End of a Tacoma Tycoon
A wealthy real estate developer and pillar of the financial community takes his own life following financial struggles.
- Vandals Wreck New Sumner Newspaper
A newly launched publication is sabotaged just days after its first issue hits the stands.
- The Detective, the Forger, and the Silverton Fiancée
Detective Sam Sumner captures a smooth-talking con man who posed as a Northern Pacific railroad official and nearly married into a Silverton family.
- The Railway Expansion That Didn't Happen
Speculation about a new Green River line reveals the frantic, often unfulfilled, infrastructure dreams of 1890s Washington.
- A Tragic Waterfront End
A Seattle iron worker perishes in Everett harbor after a night of drinking.
- Tacoma Petitions to Throw Open the Puyallup Reservation
Businessmen, railroad men and politicians circulate petitions to oust the Puyallup Indian agent and dismantle federal restrictions, arguing the reservation's lands and rail routes should be 'opened' — a dispossession dressed as progress.
- Blood on the Hop Fields
A long-standing property dispute over a county road and hop land turns lethal near Lake Tapps.
- The Struggle for the Puyallup Hop Market
As global buyers shun local crops, growers grapple with the high cost of quality and a market that refuses to pay.
- Redirecting the River: Reclaiming the Stuck Valley
Pierce County engineers cut a new channel through the Stuck River to drain 2,000 acres of farmland and end the cycle of sand-choked floods.
- The Inside Story of the Roslyn Bank Job
A tipster known as 'The Queen' and a remorseful participant reveal how a secret ring of thirteen men planned a violent bank heist in the coal mining town of Roslyn.
- The Morning the Graphophone Spoke
A group of Seattle scientists and journalists gathered in 1888 to witness the wonders of Thomas Edison's new 'graphophone' recording device, marveling at its ability to capture and reproduce human speech.
- Tacoma's Temperance Women Declare Taxes Without the Ballot Tyranny
At their annual meeting, the Pierce County W.C.T.U. demanded full suffrage and called out newspapers for printing crime and divorce details.
- The Bridge That Broke: Tacoma's Infrastructure Crisis and the Union Mutiny
As a vital bridge spanning the Puyallup River collapses under its own weight, Tacoma residents face logistical chaos while a separate maritime labor dispute erupts into violence on the docks.
- A $2 Million Power Plant Would Harness White River for Tacoma and Seattle
Promoters behind a New Jersey-chartered company plan a Lake Tapps reservoir and a Stuck Valley generator, aiming to power an interurban railroad and industry in Tacoma and Seattle.
- The Tillicums' Trick: How a Political Machine Fooled Tacoma's Democrats
A secretive faction called the Tillicums manipulates primaries, places decoy tickets, and doles out patronage jobs to tighten its grip on Pierce County politics.
- Hop Growers Pledge Their 'Word and Honor' to Pay Pickers Less
With the hop market collapsing in the summer of 1894, growers from ten Puget Sound counties met at Puyallup and fixed a single price for picking — 65 to 75 cents a box, down from the dollar they had promised. Ezra Meeker, the valley's biggest grower, said out loud what the resolution implied: the pickers had no seat at the table.
- A Pioneer's Last Entry: J. P. Stewart of Puyallup
A banker, postmaster, probate judge and territorial legislator died suddenly at 61, leaving behind a handwritten memoir of a journey from New York to the Puyallup Valley.
- The Shingle That Carried Washington Through the Panic of 1893
A year-end accounting of the state's sawmills and shingle mills shows a timber empire reaching twenty-two foreign countries — and a rail trade down 25 percent as the national depression bites.
- The Wig and the Wire: How a Tacoma Newspaper Owner Tried to Destroy a Judge
In the sensational Wickersham trial of 1889, prosecutor R.P. Radebaugh’s own past and his alleged conspiracy to frame Judge Wickersham for 'immorality' were laid bare in court.