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76 stories matching beam
- The Vigilantes' Ghost: Seattle's Dark Secret in Two Maple Trees
A poem published in the *Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer* reveals the city’s foundational myth: that its current 'peaceable' order was bought with the blood of six men hanged by a secret committee when the law failed to act.
- The Tragedy at the Bryant Place: A Life Cut Short in Whitman County
In November 1888, William McCloud’s death by suicide near Pullman shocked neighbors and sparked a somber inquest, revealing the quiet despair behind the frontier's bustling growth.
- The Medal-Winning Blacksmith of Dayton
How a small-town Washington inventor gained international acclaim from the Parisian Academy of Inventors for a clever sidehill plow design.
- Trapped in the Wreckage
A gas explosion in Spokane turns a bookstore into a furnace, leaving a woman to face her final moments in front of a helpless crowd.
- Cheaper to Ship Wheat to Liverpool Than to Seattle: An Inland Empire Farmer's Case Against the Railroads
A Whitman County grower tells the Post-Intelligencer that Palouse wheat can be raised for about 30 cents a bushel — and sent 16,000 miles to England for less than the railroad charges to haul it 400 miles to the Sound.
- The Queen City gets a new tugboat
A festive launch of Stetson & Post's new tugboat ends in a brush with catastrophe.
- The Centennial That Saved Seattle: How 8,000 Souls Turned a Territorial Mist into a City
On July 4, 1876, despite being late to statehood and lacking federal funding, Seattle’s pioneers pulled off a spectacle of flags, steamers, and speeches that proved the town was here to stay.
- 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.
- A Chaotic Day on the Seattle Waterfront
Multiple steamship collisions, a warehouse fire, and a capsized picnic boat turned the Seattle harbor into a disaster zone on a single August day.
- Masked Vigilantes Hang a Convicted Murderer in Dayton Jail
James McPherson, convicted of murdering E. H. Cummins at New York Bar, was taken from the Dayton jail by masked men and hanged, despite a governor's reprieve and a new trial order.
- The Tragic End of a Seattle Logger
After years of success followed by a swift decline in fortune, a once-prosperous logger faces the ruin of his livelihood and his mental health.
- The House on Rollers: Moving an Entire Hotel to Save a Town
When the Northern Pacific Railroad bypassed Old Yakima, developers physically relocated the town's buildings—including the Holland House—to the new site, one mile at a time.
- The Ghost Ship of Barclay Sound
A British bark, found abandoned and dismantled, leaves a maritime mystery in its wake.
- The Boat That Built Itself Twice: How a Portland Captain Saved His Alaska Dream
Captain Spencer didn't just buy a wrecked sternwheeler; he bought the parts of two lost ships and assembled them into a new vessel, proving that in the age of steam, ingenuity could outpace disaster.
- The Day the Sloop Fired on a Federal Cutter
In 1860, twenty-four Port Townsend citizens chartered a sloop to save $5 on fares to Olympia. When intercepted by a revenue cutter, their captain opened fire with a brass howitzer—only to discover he’d just threatened the U.S. government.
- The Father Who Stopped a Play to Steal His Daughter
A wealthy Indianapolis patriarch tracks his romantic daughter to Seattle in 1876, only to find she has eloped with a lawyer and vanished into the West.
- Two Coal Colliers Vanished With Seattle Men Aboard
The Keweenaw and the Matanzas, both familiar in Seattle harbor, were given up for lost between British Columbia and San Francisco—taking a crew that included the Keweenaw's captain, his son, and a Seattle engineer.
- The Day Seattle Woke Up: A Traveler’s Rave Review of the 'Metropolitan' Future
In July 1870, a San Francisco correspondent returns from a voyage down the coast and is stunned by the rapid transformation of his hometown into a booming commercial hub.
- The Mystery of the Capsized Sloop Martha
A maritime mystery unfolds near Marrowstone Point after the steamer George E. Starr discovers an abandoned, overturned vessel.
- The Willard Ainsworth's Dangerous Nine-Month Cruise
A Seattle sealing schooner heads for the coast of Japan and Siberia, defying revenue cutters and maritime pressure to secure a massive catch.
- The Winnifred Burns: A Lake Washington Steamer Lost at the Dock
An early-morning fire at Leech's Dock destroyed the Newcastle-run steamer Winnifred, a wharf and a boardinghouse, exposing how much of Seattle still depended on borrowed hose and luck.
- The Confession That Stunned the Bench: A Stevedore’s Shameful Theft
In a Tacoma courtroom, Fred Wells didn't just admit to stealing from his sleeping bunkmate—he detailed how he lived like a king on stolen cash before being caught red-handed.
- The Secretary of the Navy Rides a Streetcar and Sees Seattle's Future
Secretary of the Navy Herbert spends a rainy Sabbath touring the proposed Lake Washington ship canal, is dazzled by the view from Broadway, and declares the waterway not only certain but a naval refuge in wartime.
- Three Fishermen Drowned Off Port Angeles While a Witness Waited Until Morning
A fishing sloop capsized east of Port Angeles. One man clung to the wreck, then swam for shore and vanished; a neighbor had heard the crew shouting for help the night before but did nothing.
- A Deadly Dash Across the Seattle Waterfront
A local worker survives a terrifying brush with death as a massive pile of lumber shifts while being loaded onto a waiting ship.
Also about this, in other words
- A Saw’s Deadly Snap: A Local Man’s Leg Shattered by a Flying Blade
In a grim reminder of the dangers inherent to Aberdeen’s booming timber industry, A.J. Fields suffered a compound fracture of the femur when machinery at Karr’s new mill exploded in violence last Friday.
- The Attorney General’s Power Grab
A critique of Attorney General Jones’s refusal to approve the bonds of the state land commissioners, arguing he has overstepped his constitutional authority.
- Worker Critically Injured in Blasting Accident
A laborer working on the Maple Valley extension of the Columbia & Puget Sound railway was struck by a jagged wooden splinter after a stump blast, leaving him in a life-threatening condition.
- A Bolt Out of a Clear Sky Passes Inches From a Sleeping Man
Lightning hits the flagpole of the Walla Walla Athletic Club on West Alder at seven in the morning, tears a hole in the roof, rips an American flag down through the building — and leaves manager S. S. Bettman untouched in his bed.
- The Bishop and the Bricklayer
Methodist Bishop Robert McIntyre writes on the spiritual necessity of labor unions and the soulless nature of modern corporate industry.
- The Peril of the Eleventh Street Grandstand
A foreman's decision to add weight to an already overloaded scaffold leads to a dangerous collapse at the Tacoma baseball grounds.
- Defective Sewer Construction in the Third Ward
Accusations of corruption and shoddy craftsmanship arise as city officials are caught using undersized rods and poor brickwork on public projects.
- The Soul of a Building
When the new Unitarian Church on Seventh Street held its dedication in 1889, the sermon offered a meditation on how timber, iron, and stone are transformed into a living, spiritual home for the community.