Research the archive
Narrow 25,724 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.
Refine
Show the numbers
| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 4 |
| 1877 | 1 |
| 1878 | 1 |
| 1883 | 1 |
| 1884 | 1 |
| 1889 | 5 |
| 1892 | 5 |
| 1893 | 3 |
| 1895 | 4 |
| 1910 | 2 |
| 1914 | 1 |
| 1923 | 1 |
29 stories matching attic
- Fire Narrowly Averted at Taylor Orchard
A quick-thinking bucket brigade saves a residence after an attic electrical fire ignites.
- The Tragedy of the Salmon Bay Shipyard
A maritime accident in the newly developing industrial tideflats of late 1889 reveals the human cost of Seattle's rapid expansion.
- An Arson Plot Unearthed in a Rented Shack
A struggling family, searching for kindling in their attic, discovers a lethal trap set to torch their home.
- The Tragedy at No. 21 Nixons Street
A Puget Sound trader’s sudden descent into madness leaves a wife dead and himself in his blood on the floor of their attic home.
- Street Improvement Disaster in Tacoma
A routine effort to clear stumps for new streets ends in a 250-pound boulder tearing through a family’s roof.
- The Forgotten Family on the Garret Floor
An impoverished immigrant family, suffering from diphtheria in a cramped Seattle attic, highlights the desperate housing conditions facing newcomers in 1889.
- Fire Consumes Ranch Home Near Lenora
A family narrowly escapes a blaze that destroyed their home and belongings, including cash found later in the ashes.
- The Last-Minute Fight Over Olympia's First Real High School
On the very morning of the school-bond election, board member J. C. Rathbun fires back at the district clerk's eleventh-hour argument against building — insisting a proper high school would make Olympia the educational capital of Washington.
- Why Olympia Should Be the Capital
A robust argument for keeping the state capital in Olympia, citing its climate, central location, and superior hotel infrastructure.
- A Community Effort for Overseas Aid
Schools across Benton County unite to gather cast-off clothing for Near East Relief orphanages in Armenia, Syria, and Greece.
- The Secret Underground Boxing Ring
A reporter hides in an attic to witness a clandestine sparring match while the city maintains a facade of propriety.
- Seattle Picks Up the Hammer: A Kindergarten, a Church and a Dozen New Homes
With confidence returning after the hard times, builders break ground on the Bailey Gatzert free kindergarten at Twelfth and Norman, finish a German church at Tenth and Stewart, and raise modern homes from Queen Anne to the south side.
- A Vassar of the West: Pullman Builds a Home for College Women
In 1895, Washington Agricultural College regents approved a granite-and-brick women’s dormitory with parlors, a recreation hall and suites modeled on Eastern colleges.
- The Grand Opening of the Occidental Hotel
John Collins opened the Occidental Hotel to thousands with free food and drink; it now accepts guests.
- The Tragedy of the McDonald Family
A destitute family in Colfax is dismantled by the courts after years of poverty, illness, and local infamy.
- The Struggle for School Space
A call to stop patching the Snohomish public school and instead plan for the city's inevitable future growth.
- Growing Pains in the Queen City: Seattle’s 1889 School Crisis
As the population exploded, the city’s schools were so overwhelmed that children were squeezed into attics, basements, and makeshift classrooms—a familiar struggle for a booming town.
- The Bachelor in the Big River Bottom
A widow tries to snag a wealthy bachelor, only to find the man she’s been bossing around is the landlord she was trying to impress.
- The Newport Club Burns: A Saloon's Last Call Comes as Smoke
A midnight blaze in 1910 destroys one of Newport's oldest business buildings — the former miners' saloon that went dry after local option — and the owners say they won't rebuild.
- The Murderer in the Parlor
A frontier tavern killing, a suspicious trial, and a woman who rose from obscurity to the height of Washington society—only to be haunted by a past she thought she’d buried.
- The Unlucky Fisherman of Seattle
A satirical poem from 1878 chronicles an angler who spends a week sitting by a local sawmill, only to become a living piece of landscape architecture for the local insect population.
- The Day the Pigs Needed Life Jackets: Seattle’s Great Duwamish Flood of 1876
As the Duwamish River swells and farmers flee to their attics, local merchants rally to clear the Skagit River, betting on a waterway that could transform the territory's economy.
- The Empire of the Sun: How a New Hotel in Seattle Will Define the Territory
A glimpse into the ambitious construction of the new British Hotel, signaling Seattle's rapid growth and confidence as a territorial capital.
- Women, Workers, and a $40,000 School Bond
Olympia prepared to vote on a new high school, with women at the polls and labor demanding that local hands build it.
- The Women Who Refused to Give Up Built a Home for Working Girls
After three incorporations, a lost treasury, and months of watching an unfinished roof, a band of Seattle women finally turned over the keys to their new Women's Home, a refuge for women 'out in the world for themselves.'