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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1859 | 1 |
| 1860 | 2 |
| 1861 | 1 |
| 1863 | 2 |
| 1872 | 2 |
| 1876 | 19 |
| 1877 | 12 |
| 1878 | 7 |
| 1879 | 1 |
| 1880 | 1 |
| 1882 | 1 |
| 1883 | 11 |
| 1884 | 5 |
| 1885 | 20 |
| 1886 | 5 |
| 1887 | 6 |
| 1888 | 12 |
| 1889 | 26 |
| 1890 | 6 |
| 1891 | 23 |
| 1892 | 48 |
| 1893 | 39 |
| 1894 | 56 |
| 1895 | 75 |
| 1897 | 2 |
| 1898 | 3 |
| 1899 | 11 |
| 1900 | 1 |
| 1903 | 26 |
| 1904 | 15 |
| 1905 | 2 |
| 1907 | 3 |
| 1908 | 6 |
| 1909 | 27 |
| 1910 | 7 |
| 1911 | 4 |
| 1912 | 2 |
| 1914 | 4 |
| 1915 | 5 |
| 1916 | 6 |
| 1917 | 9 |
| 1923 | 3 |
| 1924 | 3 |
| 1925 | 3 |
| 1928 | 1 |
524 stories matching applic
- Seattle's Waterfront Was Up for Grabs — and Everyone Filed a Claim
With the tide-land plats at last filed, hundreds of buyers have staked overlapping claims across Elliott Bay, and officials are predicting years of litigation over who really owns the shore.
- The Paperwork of Exclusion: Chinese Residents Ordered to Register
New federal rules land in Seattle requiring every Chinese resident to carry a photographic certificate of residence, sworn affidavits and a detailed physical description — the machinery of the Geary Act takes shape.
- 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.
- City Council Denies Liquor License to Infamous Proprietor
A contentious debate erupts over an application to open a saloon on Jackson Street, fueled by community protests and charges of operating a house of prostitution.
- The Tacoma Gold Rush That Was Salted With Quicksilver
A mining journal exposes how placer claims on Tacoma school land turned a public trust into a speculative jackpot—complete with imported gold, alleged bribery, and a land office that kept saying yes.
- Who Owns the Water? Marcus Grants 25-Year Private Franchise
Stevens County commissioners hand a sweeping water system monopoly to a group of investors, with a two-year deadline to build or lose the right.
- The Dredgers Were Coming: Seattle Builds Its Tide Flats
Engineers surveyed bulkheads, plotted fill, and prepared to bring two big dredgers to the Duwamish tide flats—while speculators rushed applications to buy the new land.
- Monte Cristo’s Residents vs. the Placer Claim
A federal commissioner orders a new hearing in the fight over whether a mining claim swallowed a Snohomish County townsite.
- Seattle's Jobless Are Handed Potato Patches
A citizens' committee working out of a Railroad Avenue office gives out vacant land, seed and tools to more than twenty families in a single day — one of them has fourteen children.
- Chinese Residents Ordered to Register—Or Face Deportation
Federal notices circulating in Seattle warned Chinese laborers that they must produce photographs and a credible witness to obtain certificates of residence under the Geary law.
- The Cold Truth at City Hall
A winter coal shortage brings a parade of desperate applicants to a city official who doles out fuel with a mix of bureaucratic cruelty and casual dismissals.
- The Paper That Stood Between Jung Wing and Deportation
Arrested at a Point Roberts cannery for lacking a registration certificate, Jung Wing wins a month to prove he is the man named on a lost Portland certificate—or face deportation.
- The Lake Washington Land Fight That Turned on a Cabin, a Railroad Claim, and 'Crazy' Miller
A decade-long homestead contest ends with William L. Miller keeping first claim—if he or his guardian can prove it within 90 days. His rival says the cabin was never really a home.
- A State Board Told Dentists to Sign Away Their Ads — One Seattle Man Refused
At the 1903 licensing exams in Tacoma, Washington's dental examiners demanded applicants sign a code-of-ethics contract before they could sit down. Edwin J. Brown of Seattle said no — and the whole profession waited to see whether he'd be barred from practice.
- The Price of a Drink in 1885 Seattle
A newly passed city ordinance lays out a complex, bureaucratic, and cash-heavy system for anyone hoping to open a saloon or bottle house.
- The Mayor's War on 'Black Chapel'
Mayor J. T. Ronald vetoes a saloon license in a notorious district, decrying the density of vice in a three-hundred-foot square.
- The Warden Fights Back: Prison Labor, Jute Sacks and a Seattle Newspaper Scandal
Accused of selling prison-made sacks to middlemen and brutalizing convicts, Walla Walla’s warden answers his critics with a detailed defense—and a challenge to inspect the prison.
- The Naturalization Law the Courts Were Supposed to Follow
A federal inspector finds courts skipping the new anarchist oath and, in Pierce County, granting citizenship to four Japanese men barred by federal rule.
- A Tinker's Alibi: How Tumwater Witnesses Overturned a Tacoma Murder Conviction
George Stowe was serving twenty years for shooting Enoch Crosby on a Tacoma street. Then residents of Tumwater swore they had watched him mend tinware miles away on the day of the murder.
- The Great Land Grab: How Speculators Stole Washington's Public Lands
A new federal ruling threatens to invalidate thousands of land claims in the Pacific Northwest, exposing innocent buyers to ruin and revealing a system rigged by attorneys and speculators.
- A Homesteader, an Indian Agent and the Land at Lake Chelan
When a federal agent prepared to forcibly remove a homesteader from land newly allotted to Colville Indians, Judge Hanford drew a line: the eviction would have to go through the courts.
- 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 Forgotten Fort Lands of Puget Sound
A Washington congressman fought to open tiny abandoned military reservations at Gig Harbor and Point Roberts to homesteaders. The House shut him down.
- The Vice President's Cousin and the $1,000 Port Townsend Swindle
A smooth-tongued 'loan agent' traded on Adlai Stevenson's name to collect membership fees from Port Townsend's most respectable Democrats — then hid behind unreturned abstracts and 'free stock' worth $100 a share.
- When Seattle Tried to Farm Its Way Out of Hard Times
An 1895 committee offered plots, tools and seed to out-of-work families near Lake Union, insisting the plan was a hand up rather than charity.