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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1888 | 3 |
| 1889 | 3 |
| 1891 | 1 |
| 1892 | 7 |
| 1893 | 4 |
| 1894 | 1 |
| 1895 | 9 |
28 stories matching thunder
- Hail, Snow, Thunder and a Shock Down the Telephone Wire
For two and a half hours Seattle gets a storm almost no climate can produce — and a businessman on Second Street gets knocked against the door by lightning on the line.
- The Sound's Long Memory for Rain
While storms rattle the nerves of new arrivals, an old-timer’s meticulous forty-year record shows the 1894 weather is nothing compared to the '63 deluge.
- The Slate Creek Boom Shrinks to 500 Miners
Two Fairhaven men return from the North Cascades with word that the stampede to Slate Creek was far smaller than reported — and that snow, unpaid bonds, and a half-built trail are cooling the rush.
- A Close Call in Colfax
A dramatic report of a lightning strike on the Sexton farm, featuring early electrical-medical treatment.
- The Populist Pitch on University Grounds
Ralph Beaumont draws a crowd of 1,500 to the university campus to preach radical land reform and rail against the ‘unearned increment.’
- The Midnight Intruder at the Dye Works
A nervous employee at a Seattle dye works reports a terrifying late-night encounter with a prowler, leading to an arrest of a man found nearby.
- Hiking the Great Northern Rail Grade
A grueling five-day foot journey from Wenatchee to Snohomish reveals the raw, volatile life of the 'mushroom towns' springing up along the railroad's path.
- The Boom That Never Was: How Utsalaay Tried to Steal Seattle's Thunder
In 1901, a rival town on Puget Sound launched an aggressive land sales campaign, claiming its harbor was superior and its resources 'inexhaustible,' while Seattle’s own economy sat in a dull slump.
- The Half-Hour Squall That Cut Seattle Off From the World
A sudden sixty-five-mile-an-hour squall tears through Seattle, snapping telegraph and telephone wires, shaking buildings and sending steamers and wharves into confusion on Elliott Bay.
- A Close Call for a Pioneer Landmark
A fire in a historic Second Street frame house—once the site of a renowned beer garden—was extinguished just before it could consume the structure.
- He Steered the Runaway Team Into a Water Meter
When the fire department's supply horses bolted near Sixth Street, driver Thomas Dunn held the reins through a breakneck descent and steered the wagon into a water meter rather than let the team drown in the harbor.
- Seattle Cuts Its Own Payroll
Facing a tax shortfall, the council slashes salaries, drops clerks and accountants, and hands the comptroller power to police the city's licenses.
- Spokane’s Thunder: Four Thousand Voters Demand John L. Wilson Be Retired
A petition drive in Spokane turns the U.S. Senate fight into a referendum on silver and railroad pooling—and boosts George Turner as the people’s choice.
- The Valley Sixty Miles From a Railroad
In 1892, the Big Bottom settlers of Lewis County had no road, no sawmill and no rail line — just hand-hewn homes, packhorses, a tobacco-chewing cat, and a Fourth of July party for 160 neighbors.
- A Chaotic Brawl in Old Whitechapel
A police pursuit of drunken sailors spills onto the streetcar tracks, resulting in a wagon collision and mass confusion.
- The Ghostly Fire on Mount Rainier
A mountain party finds their camp transformed into an eerie, glowing scene during an alpine electrical storm.
- The City That Wasn't: Port Townsend’s Bold Pitch to Steal Seattle’s Thunder
In January 1889, the Mayor of Port Townsend published a scathing list of 'facts' in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, arguing that his town was the true commercial heart of the Pacific Northwest while Seattle remained a mere backwater.
- The Captain Who Caught a Monster: Seattle’s Own Sea Serpent Hoax
Captain Pat J. Boyton of Seattle claims to have captured a 63-foot sea serpent in the Pacific, sending a letter from his ship that has locals buzzing with wonder and skepticism.
- The Day the Cardinal Rode Through the Mud: A Historic Union of Northern and Southern Presbyterians
In a rare moment of post-Civil War reconciliation, thousands gathered in Seattle to witness the historic meeting of two Presbyterian Assemblies that had been divided by the Mason-Dixon line for decades.
- Seattle City Hall's Pay Cut Leaves a Hornet's Nest—and One Philosophical Engineer
Council slashed salaries, abolished jobs, and triggered charges of charter-reform politics.
- The Trickle-Down Fury of the Waterfront
A brutal hierarchy on a Seattle steamboat illustrates the chaotic and abusive nature of labor relations in the 1889 maritime trade.
- The Steamboat That Dared the Rapids
Captain James W. Troup pilots the steamer *Hasalo* through the treacherous Cascades of the Columbia River in a feat of navigation that thrilled onlookers and defied death.
- A Squall Tore Through Seattle—and a Husband Saved His Wife from the Bay
A sudden storm knocked out telegraph and telephone wires, smashed windows, flipped wagons, ditched a shingle train, and nearly drowned a mill worker and his Native wife in Elliott Bay.
- The Day the Sloop Fired on a Federal Cutter
In 1860, twenty-four Port Townsend citizens chartered a sloop to save $5 on fares to Olympia. When intercepted by a revenue cutter, their captain opened fire with a brass howitzer—only to discover he’d just threatened the U.S. government.
- Canoeing the Queets: Promise and Dispossession on the Olympic Peninsula
An 1892 travelogue celebrates homesteaders in the Queets River valley while arguing that Native hunters should be confined to the reservation.