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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1859 | 1 |
| 1861 | 1 |
| 1863 | 1 |
| 1872 | 1 |
| 1876 | 24 |
| 1877 | 22 |
| 1878 | 11 |
| 1880 | 4 |
| 1882 | 4 |
| 1883 | 25 |
| 1884 | 5 |
| 1885 | 31 |
| 1886 | 12 |
| 1887 | 14 |
| 1888 | 11 |
| 1889 | 53 |
| 1890 | 9 |
| 1891 | 22 |
| 1892 | 46 |
| 1893 | 44 |
| 1894 | 44 |
| 1895 | 53 |
| 1896 | 1 |
| 1898 | 6 |
| 1899 | 9 |
| 1903 | 18 |
| 1904 | 22 |
| 1905 | 2 |
| 1908 | 7 |
| 1909 | 27 |
| 1910 | 7 |
| 1911 | 2 |
| 1914 | 4 |
| 1915 | 1 |
| 1916 | 7 |
| 1917 | 2 |
| 1923 | 2 |
| 1925 | 3 |
558 stories matching air
- Thirty-Seven Miners Died 150 Feet From Safety
An 1894 coroner's jury in Franklin, Washington, heard how a small fire in the Oregon Improvement Company's coal mine became a wall of smoke — and why the men who could have escaped stayed to fight it.
- The Dead Horses That Taught Tacoma How to Raise Sunken Ships
A Tacoma patent company says its collapsible air bags can lift wrecks from the sea floor—a trick supposedly inspired by a bloated boatload of horses in the Ohio River. Investors are already fighting over the fortune.
- The Balloon Dreams of 1889
While aeronauts of the late 19th century insisted that aerial travel was the future, Seattle residents remained skeptical of the 'helpless' hot air ships.
- A Town Buries Its Miners
Funeral services for the Blue Canyon mine disaster dead fill Bay View cemetery as a coroner's jury begins asking whether enough air—and enough regulation—reached the men underground.
- The Mystery of the Ice-Forming Caves
A scientific inquiry into why midsummer ice forms in the lava tunnels of the Washington wilderness.
- The Balloon Boy of Seattle
A 12-year-old boy is snatched into the sky after becoming entangled in a hot-air balloon's rigging, leading to a desperate mid-air struggle.
- Thirty-Seven Miners Died Because They Stayed to Fight the Fire
A blaze in the Franklin coal mine sent smoke through the gangways on Aug. 24, 1894, killing 37 men and boys who thought they had time to escape.
- The Cowcatcher Lifted Her Into the Air, and Then They Took Her Home
An elderly Native woman walking the Northern Pacific tracks below town is swept up by the overland express — and walks away from it, carried off by her mother and son.
- The Smoke That Choked the Sound
As Seattle rebuilds from its Great Fire, a more insidious disaster—the annual torching of Washington’s vast forests—threatens the region’s economic future.
- The Perilous Depths of the Newcastle Mine
A rare eyewitness account from 1,000 feet below the earth, where miners fight 'black damp' and underground fires to power a growing Seattle.
- The Silent Killer in the Boarding House
An 1878 editorial warns Seattle residents that the city's obsession with airtight rooms and coal stoves is fueling a tuberculosis epidemic.
- The Poor Man's Stump Burner: Newport Farmers Pack Kelly's Hall
In 1909, 150 farmers crowded a Newport hall to hear a state expert explain how to clear land by charring stumps—a low-cost method that promised to open Pend Oreille County fields.
- A Breath of Fire-Damp Killed Twenty-Three Blue Canyon Miners
A coal-mine explosion near Lake Whatcom wiped out nearly an entire shift just before it was due to change, leaving only two survivors to tell what happened underground.
- Fifty Turns on the Shaft: A Foundry Apprentice's Miraculous Escape
Nineteen-year-old Charles Meydenbauer was caught in the shafting at Moran's foundry, spun fifty times twenty feet above the floor—and lived to describe it.
- The Open-Air Slumber of Seattle's Waterfront
When the summer heat turned tenement apartments into 'human lumber-boxes,' thousands of Seattle residents—men, women, and children alike—sought respite by camping overnight on the exposed, city-owned piers.
- The Tragedy of the Diver in Tacoma Harbor
A routine salvage operation to reach a sunken vessel turned fatal when a burst air pipe left a diver trapped in the depths of Puget Sound.
- The 'Cubic Air' Ordinance and a Courtroom Stand-Off
A legal clash in Seattle pits local officials against a law that criminalized living conditions for the Chinese community.
- City Leaders Hike the South Tacoma Woods to Scout New Wells
After a soaking walk through the forest, city officials and contractors consider a new strategy for Tacoma’s water future.
- The Tragedy at Trent: A Deadly Railroad Collision
A passenger train and a freight train collide in a fatal error, killing a brakeman and prompting a rare condemnation of corporate negligence.
- A Cow on the Track, a Freight Train in the Air, and Two Dead Railroad Men
A wandering cow derailed a freight train near Latona in 1894, killing two railroad workers and scattering thirteen cars while crewmen ran ahead to flag the passenger trains.
- The Sewer Under Beacon Hill
After quicksand, floods and a costly detour, Seattle’s South Tunnel is weeks from completion—and somehow still inside its $100,000 budget.
- Seattle’s Temple of Learning Rises Between Two Lakes
In 1895, contractors raced to finish a $200,000 campus between Union and Washington lakes—complete with copper finials, a gymnasium and a hillside observatory—before the September opening.
- Barnstorming Above the Valley
A daredevil aerial show featuring parachute jumps and mid-air transfers lands in Yakima, showcasing the post-WWI obsession with flight.
- The Fire Beneath the Floorboards
A careless act in a pumphouse triggers a blaze that halts production and leaves miners sprinting for their lives.
- The Thirty-Mile Dream: A New Air Line Between Seattle and Tacoma
Promoter Henry Bucey revived a plan for a broad-gauge railroad linking Tacoma and Seattle, promising a shorter route—if he could secure the right-of-way and land subsidies first.
Also about this, in other words
- The Fight for Breathable Air in Seattle's Tenements
City health officials launch an inspection campaign to enforce density limits in overcrowded boarding houses.
- The Monkey and the Parachute
A Seattle balloonist's aerial act for the Humane Society's consideration.
- The City That Breathed Soot: Seattle’s First War on Air Pollution
In 1898, the Board of Health declared a 'war upon smoke' to save the city from choking on its own industrial exhaust. It was one of the earliest municipal attempts to regulate air quality in America.
- The Breathing Well of Yakima
An artesian well on the P. R. Wood property displays strange, inexplicable atmospheric fluctuations.
- Tragic Fall at the Pomeroy Stock Fair
A novice assistant was dragged into the sky by a tethered balloon, falling fifty feet to the earth in front of a crowd.
- The Perilous Life of a High-Flying Acrobat
An aerial gymnast recounts the brutal physical toll, the thrill of the heights, and the changing landscape of show business in the Pacific Northwest.
- The War on 'Fly-by-Night' Newspapers
A new legislative bill aims to stop cheap, unread newspapers from monopolizing municipal advertising contracts.
- Seattle’s First Battle for Clean Air
The city council passes a landmark ordinance to curb factory smoke, signaling a crackdown on the industrial polluters that have long choked the downtown air.