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27 stories matching actuat
- Hoquiam’s School Board Prioritizes Local Business Over Outsiders
While Hoquiam mandates that local contractors perform school heating work, Aberdeen officials look to Tacoma for technical installations.
- The Battle Over Bank Taxes
Walla Walla taxpayers clash with the local First National Bank over tax rebates, with the paper calling for a stronger backbone from the city administration.
- The Secret Plot to Liquidate Seattle’s Elite
A deathbed confession unearths a forgotten 1886 conspiracy by radical socialists to assassinate prominent Seattle figures, including the city's founder, Arthur A. Denny.
- Three Votes Kill Washington's Eight-Hour Day for Women—Then a Fight Nearly Breaks Out
A bill to shorten women's workdays from ten hours to eight died in the Olympia house after a cannery exemption and a corridor confrontation between two lawmakers.
- Defending the New Workers' Compensation Act
Everett labor leaders push back against corporate attempts to undermine the state's landmark compensation law.
- The Puppet Editor's Expensive Betrayal
A cautionary tale of a local 'figurehead' editor who was used by power brokers to spread libel, only to be abandoned when the lawsuits started arriving.
- The Skagit River Snag-Clearer's Defense
After volunteers broke their backs clearing river jams, a community organizer had to fight off accusations of embezzlement.
- The State's Secret School Fund Battle
The Board of State Land Commissioners strikes back against allegations of corruption during the financial crisis of 1893.
- The Milk Inspector Spokane Loved to Hate
Dr. James Bullivant fined five Spokane dairymen for selling milk below standard. The dairymen said he was less interested in public health than in collecting half the fines.
- The Town Takes a Stand Against Domestic Abuse
Forty-three women in Olympia sign a resolution formally denouncing a local man for his history of violence against his wife and children.
- A Friday Harbor Citizen Tells a Rival Editor to Pack His Bags and Go
When the San Juan Graphic blamed saloons for driving settlers to Orcas Island, a letter-writer fired back: if the moral air is so pure over there, why not start your paper there—we'll see you off with a band.
- The Tariff That Stole Your Coat: How Washington's Economy Was Held Hostage
In October 1890, Aberdeen workers and farmers felt the bite of the McKinley Tariff before it even passed, as prices soared and wages stagnated in a state where 'free labor' was being priced out of existence.
- The Skagit Gold Rush Mirage
When the promise of easy riches on the Skagit River sparked a frantic, ill-fated mining boom, Seattle’s local press faced accusations of peddling a dangerous myth.
- The Tax Swindle: How Seattle’s Printer Defrauded His Neighbors
In 1872, the publisher of the *Puget Sound Dispatch* exposed a collusive scheme between local tax collectors and a rival newspaper to overcharge delinquent taxpayers for legal notices, sparking a bitter war of words in the territorial press.
- The Secret Move to Fire Seattle’s Police Chief
A closed-door police commission meeting nearly deposed Chief Bolton Rogers. Commissioners disagreed over politics, fitness, and whether the mayor had already shut the effort down.
- Arson Suspected After Fire Devours the Ballard News
A 2 a.m. blaze destroyed a newspaper plant and several buildings in Ballard; the fire chief’s engine never made it through the roads.
- The Spanking That Became a Fugitive Hunt
Allen Weir says a child-discipline complaint in Olympia was magnified into a criminal manhunt — and he wants the public to hear his side.
- The Brick Crisis: Why Seattle’s Boom Is Stalling Because of Empty Lots
An editorial warns that the city's rapid growth is being choked by a lack of commercial infrastructure, urging property owners to build or lease for development before capital flees to rival towns.
- Gov. McGraw Opens the State Road Convention at Olympia
Delegates from every county gather in the capital to plan a statewide campaign for better roads — and to demand that the political parties finally take up internal improvements.
- The Great Skagit Jam: How Local Men Tried to Unplug the River
In 1876, a massive logjam blocked the Skagit River for miles. While officials debated expensive dredging projects, local loggers took matters into their own hands with picks and dynamite.
- A Streetcar Magnate Denies Bribery and Blames an Alderman's Grudge
Writing from St. Louis, Union Trunk Line president E. F. Wittler flatly denies offering Alderman J. Eugene Jordan $100 and a lifetime pass to stop fighting the line's Rainier Heights branch — and says Jordan told him he was only trying to 'get even with Lowman.'
- The Normal School Was Cleared. The Unpaid Workers Weren’t.
A legislative committee investigating the Ellensburg Normal School found no corruption among trustees—only changed plans, discounted emergency scrip, and laborers left chasing a contractor.
- The Dark-Lantern Courthouse Deal That Split Benton County
Two defeated commissioners pushed a $125,000 courthouse bond through in thirty minutes, and Kennewick's editor saw a county-seat conspiracy — and a raid on the taxpayers' treasury.
- A 'Close Combination' at the Courthouse: Surveyor Accuses King County's Ring of Self-Dealing
King County's surveyor says commissioners paid the prosecuting attorney's rent to their own chairman's Union Block while refusing to cover his office — and he names the men he says run the courthouse for themselves.
- Seattle Lost the Ship Canal Fight in One Olympia Night
The 1892 Democratic state convention rejected the Lake Washington ship canal, humiliated King County's delegates and nominated Henry J. Snively for governor — setting off a political feud over Seattle's waterfront future.