Research the archive
Narrow 27,002 newspaper stories by words, years, place, newspaper and subject. See when and where they ran, then download what you find.
Put a phrase in quotes ("rent strike") or leave a word out with a minus (strike -baseball). Old scans misspell names, so when little is found, near-spellings are offered.
Refine1 on
Show the numbers
| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1872 | 5 |
| 1876 | 30 |
| 1877 | 15 |
| 1878 | 5 |
| 1880 | 1 |
| 1882 | 1 |
| 1883 | 10 |
| 1884 | 8 |
| 1885 | 19 |
| 1886 | 5 |
| 1887 | 7 |
| 1888 | 10 |
| 1889 | 26 |
| 1891 | 6 |
| 1892 | 33 |
| 1893 | 32 |
| 1894 | 46 |
| 1895 | 60 |
| 1897 | 1 |
| 1899 | 9 |
| 1903 | 1 |
| 1924 | 1 |
| 1929 | 2 |
333 stories matching appli
- The Battle for the Ballot: Anti-Suffragists Plot to Block Women's Registration
Leading citizens of Seattle move to declare women’s suffrage unconstitutional just days before the city election, sparking a quiet but fierce political standoff.
- The Marriage License Court Battle
A young couple defeats parental interference in the local courts.
- The Eight-Hour War: Seattle’s Labor Law Hits a Legal Wall
As the state’s landmark eight-hour workday law takes effect, prosecutors and judges clash over whether it applies to private contractors like the Pacific Bridge Company, leaving workers in limbo.
- The Pioneer Dream at 2nd and Seneca
A straightforward listing from 1876 that marks the humble origins of a city lot in downtown Seattle.
- The Waterfront Real Estate Gamble of 1876
A modest land offering on M Street captures the ambition of a growing frontier town.
- The Saloonkeeper's Legal Loophole
A Seattle business owner successfully challenged city regulators by arguing that a valid, unexpired license remains binding even after moving to a new storefront.
- The Price of a 1876 Pioneer Homestead
A modest classified advertisement offers a glimpse into the vanished residential geography of downtown Seattle’s First Hill.
- The Real Estate Market of 1876
A straightforward listing for a modest home on 2nd Street offers a window into the foundational land development of Seattle.
- The Price of Early Seattle
A real estate notice from 1876 advertises a prime plot of land between Seneca and University—a neighborhood that would eventually become the heartbeat of downtown Seattle.
- The Year Queen Anne Kicked Until Its Fire Insurance Rates Fell
After a year of organized pressure, residents won 25 to 50 percent cuts—because an engine house finally persuaded insurers the hill was worth protecting.
- A Frontier Real Estate Deal
A classic 1876 listing for a house and lot on 2nd Avenue, revealing the mid-development geography of early Seattle.
- The Sermon and the Station: Seattle’s First Constitutional Clash
When the city allowed a church to use a decommissioned fire station for worship, it sparked a sharp constitutional debate between a secularist group and the Mayor.
- The Bricklayer Shortage of 1888
As Seattle began its rapid expansion, contractors scrambled to find enough skilled labor to keep pace with the building boom.
- The City Council Votes to Erase 'Whitechapel'
Facing mounting pressure to sanitize the city's image, Seattle officials move to ban the term 'Whitechapel'—a derogatory nickname for the city's poorest district—from official records and public discourse.
- The First Avenue Hill Real Estate Hunt
A straightforward 1876 listing for a 60x120 lot on Second Street captures a moment when the prestigious First Avenue Hill neighborhood was just beginning its transformation into Seattle's urban core.
- The Quarantine Lie: How Providence Hospital’s Smallpox Cover-Up Sparked a Public Health Crisis
A desperate letter from hospital staff reveals that patients were turned away or allowed to leave while infected with smallpox, leading to a chaotic quarantine and widespread community fear in early 1903 Seattle.
- City Council Members Dodge Responsibility on James Street
While private citizens were forced to fulfill their contracts, two city council members allegedly abandoned their own street improvement project without penalty.
- 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 Streetcar That Ate the Profits: Third Street Line May Shut Down
A federal receiver gets permission to issue $15,000 in certificates, but the order bars any more money from being sunk into Seattle's losing Third Street railway.
- The Jailhouse Remedy for a Bad Case of Whiskey
A desperate man suffering from the effects of alcohol voluntarily surrendered himself to the Seattle sheriff, asking to be locked away until he could regain his senses.
- The Saloon at the Race Track
A legal battle over liquor licenses in the Duwamish precinct reveals the limits of civic power when faced with the relentless machinery of the law.
- The Tragedy at Pontiac Station
A deaf man walking along the tracks is struck and killed by a passenger train near Seattle, highlighting the lethal risks of early transit infrastructure.
- The Bureaucratic Cruelty of Chinese Exclusion
A Christian Chinese resident is denied the right to bring his wife to the United States following a restrictive court ruling.
- The Forgotten Pioneer Hospital of Seattle
Before modern medical complexes, the city’s sick and homeless were cared for in a modest, private facility on Commercial Street.
- The Great Seattle Tide-Land Land Rush
When the sixty-day window for claiming harbor tidelands closed, a flood of overlapping applications landed in Olympia — and the state had to decide who owned the young city’s waterfront.