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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 1 |
| 1858 | 2 |
| 1859 | 2 |
| 1861 | 2 |
| 1863 | 1 |
| 1864 | 2 |
| 1872 | 5 |
| 1876 | 32 |
| 1877 | 29 |
| 1878 | 12 |
| 1879 | 1 |
| 1880 | 12 |
| 1882 | 7 |
| 1883 | 33 |
| 1884 | 14 |
| 1885 | 36 |
| 1886 | 26 |
| 1887 | 22 |
| 1888 | 25 |
| 1889 | 69 |
| 1890 | 13 |
| 1891 | 42 |
| 1892 | 108 |
| 1893 | 92 |
| 1894 | 87 |
| 1895 | 88 |
| 1897 | 7 |
| 1898 | 13 |
| 1899 | 22 |
| 1900 | 13 |
| 1902 | 2 |
| 1903 | 69 |
| 1904 | 60 |
| 1905 | 3 |
| 1907 | 1 |
| 1908 | 20 |
| 1909 | 55 |
| 1910 | 13 |
| 1911 | 2 |
| 1912 | 3 |
| 1914 | 5 |
| 1915 | 16 |
| 1916 | 27 |
| 1917 | 11 |
| 1923 | 5 |
| 1924 | 6 |
| 1925 | 1 |
| 1929 | 2 |
1,119 stories matching bad
- The Floor Gives Way: Panic and Death at Seattle’s Morris Opera House
A grand opening night turns into a nightmare when the second-story floor of the newly converted theater collapses into the stables below, killing several and injuring dozens in one of the city's earliest major disasters.
- At Green Lake, Nobody Had a Reputation Quite Like Rev. Parker's
A Seattle estate hearing turned into a neighbors' referendum on a minister's honesty, with testimony that he was called a liar, a hypocrite and worse.
- The Judge Who Gambled Away His Office: Soderberg’s Dramatic Resignation
After the grand jury returned five indictments for extortion and malfeasance in office, District Attorney Joseph Soderberg walked into court, tendered his resignation, and declared he would repay every illegal fee to the county treasury.
- Henry Villard’s Hotel Test: Seattle Wins the Coast’s Comfort Race
A railroad magnate’s refusal to overnight in Portland’s bad hotels becomes a Seattle booster’s proof that first-class accommodations were a competitive weapon.
- A Frontier Double Standard
In an 1878 column, Captain John of the Siutes calls out the brutal hypocrisy of territorial justice: while white criminals get a trial, Indigenous people get the army.
- The Wig and the Wire: How a Tacoma Newspaper Owner Tried to Destroy a Judge
In the sensational Wickersham trial of 1889, prosecutor R.P. Radebaugh’s own past and his alleged conspiracy to frame Judge Wickersham for 'immorality' were laid bare in court.
- Seven Months at Sea: The State of Maine’s Ordeal
The State of Maine left New York in July 1892 and reached Seattle 201 days later, her crew disabled by saltwater boils, her water spoiled, and her captain forced to beat men to the pumps.
- The Four-Year-Old at the Heart of a Custody War
After a day of dueling accusations, Judge Humes rules that little Chester Stewart stays with his mother — and has a word for anyone who would take a child over bad language.
- The Orchardist Who Told the State Its Moth Spraying Was Useless
In 1898, a North Yakima grower argued that the state's codlin-moth spray schedule did not fit the Yakima Valley's climate—and warned that apple and pear growing might be doomed without better field science.
- The Man Who Laughed Through the Flames: A Snohomish Tragedy of Love and Loss
When a gas leak ignited his home in Fruitland, Washington, Chandler Chandler didn't run for safety—he shielded his wife from the blast. His subsequent conversation with the doctor reveals a stoicism that defies belief.
- The Rockets Turned Around: Tacoma's Fourth of July Went Up in a Sheet of Flame
A spark touched off the entire $500 pyrotechnic stock at Wright Park, driving rockets and bombs into a crowd of thousands and leaving women and children burned, trampled and briefly lost in the smoke.
- The Price of a 'Bad Man's' Temper
A Seattle newspaper editorial rails against a lenient verdict for a saloon regular who murdered a bartender over a perceived slight.
- The Bridge Swung, and Fifteen Loaded Cars Went Down
A bridge collapse near Walla Walla sent a tender, fifteen freight cars and a caboose into a ravine, leaving three railroad men badly injured and one likely to lose an arm.
- A Frontier Vendetta Spills onto the Beach
An Indigenous man is shot in a dispute over a death attributed to 'bad Tamanas' or spiritual curses.
- The 'Curse' of the Chinese: How Seattle's Elite Tried to Buy Their Way Out of Racism
In May 1882, a local editorial argued that property owners should refuse to rent or sell land to Chinese immigrants, claiming they were bad tenants and a financial drain on the city.
- County Money Drained Into a Doomed Bank — and an Effigy on Dock Street
A Whatcom banker stands accused of steering $50,000 in county funds into a failing institution, while angry citizens string up a stuffed likeness of him on a telegraph pole.
- 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.
- The Navy's $600,000 Question: Was the Dry Dock Built on Bad Piles?
A special commission of Army engineers is rushed to Puget Sound to test whether the navy's new dry dock was built on bad piling and inferior concrete.
- The Pend Oreille Swells Toward a Record Crest
Heavy rains in Montana send drift and broken booms downstream, threatening Newport’s mills and log supply.
- The Mud of the Highlands
Melting snows leave Kennewick rural routes impassable, forcing students to crawl over dangerous flumes to get home.
- A Steamboat Inspector on Trial, and the Men Who Kicked
A Seattle courtroom hears masters and pilots defend Capt. Bryant against charges of favoritism—and admit that the men who complain are often the incompetent ones.
- A Scandalous Clandestine Marriage Ends in Court
After defying her father's warnings about her husband's bad habits, Kate Stephenson secures a divorce and custody of her children.
- A Body in the Ashes at Rolling Bay
An eyewitness to the coroner's inquest corrects the Post-Intelligencer's lurid account of a bullet-scarred, half-burned corpse found in a shack on Bainbridge Island — and lays out his own theory of an unsolved Kitsap County killing.
- The Great Detective Panic of North Yakima
When word reached town that a Chicago detective had arrived by stagecoach, dozens of the city’s leading men fled into the freezing wilderness, resulting in frozen limbs, broken bones, and a ruined reputation.
- The Tragedy at Mill Creek
A body discovered by children near an old farm prompts a grim investigation into a man believed to have taken his own life.
Also about this, in other words
- A Bad Day for Yakima's Working Men
A whirlwind, a runaway horse, and a fall from a hay load lead to a busy day for the local doctor.
- The Great Northern's Bad-Luck Stop: Freight Wreck at Elk
A through eastbound freight slammed into the caboose of a local train at Elk, smashing six cars and tying up traffic for hours—just the latest wreck at a town with a reputation.
- An Editor's Brutal Critique of Bad Poetry
A local poet brings his manuscript to the P-I office, only to have his work butchered by an editor with a cynical, practical sense of humor.
- The Worst Storm on the Sound: A Train Wreck, a Drifting Ship, and Dead Wires
A landslide derails a Northern Pacific freight near Castle Rock, a British ship is blown across Tacoma bay, and the telegraph goes dead from Seattle south.
- The Perils of a Modern Diet
A local column warns Tacoma residents that the 'great national vice' of gluttony and poor food combinations is endangering public health.
- The 'Baneful' Habit Griping Seattle's Youth
As cigarettes gained popularity among city boys, turn-of-the-century moralists and physicians in Seattle sounded the alarm, linking the 'sallow-faced' habit to everything from indigestion to moral decay.
- A Case of Bad Checks and Regret
M. O. Sinderude is sentenced to prison after passing a worthless check at a local business, citing intoxication as his defense.
- The Silent Dangers of Seattle’s Early Boarding Houses
A 19th-century public health warning reveals the grim reality of sanitation in early Seattle, where overcrowded and poorly drained boarding houses became breeding grounds for typhoid fever.