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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 12 |
| 1859 | 3 |
| 1860 | 4 |
| 1861 | 8 |
| 1862 | 2 |
| 1863 | 3 |
| 1871 | 1 |
| 1872 | 9 |
| 1876 | 37 |
| 1877 | 42 |
| 1878 | 29 |
| 1879 | 4 |
| 1880 | 8 |
| 1882 | 10 |
| 1883 | 43 |
| 1884 | 32 |
| 1885 | 27 |
| 1886 | 32 |
| 1887 | 32 |
| 1888 | 16 |
| 1889 | 46 |
| 1890 | 14 |
| 1891 | 78 |
| 1892 | 127 |
| 1893 | 156 |
| 1894 | 113 |
| 1895 | 189 |
| 1897 | 3 |
| 1898 | 7 |
| 1899 | 28 |
| 1900 | 3 |
| 1903 | 48 |
| 1904 | 31 |
| 1905 | 5 |
| 1907 | 3 |
| 1908 | 16 |
| 1909 | 112 |
| 1910 | 14 |
| 1911 | 8 |
| 1912 | 5 |
| 1914 | 15 |
| 1915 | 13 |
| 1916 | 40 |
| 1917 | 18 |
| 1918 | 3 |
| 1923 | 8 |
| 1924 | 12 |
| 1925 | 4 |
| 1928 | 1 |
| 1929 | 2 |
1,476 stories matching bill
- Eight Days, $7 Million in Requests, and a Labor Agenda Left to Die
Washington's 1909 legislature entered its final week with appropriations far outrunning revenue, more than 30 liquor bills pending, and nearly every labor measure quietly sidetracked.
- 651 Bills, 13 Laws: Inside Olympia's Frantic Last Two Weeks
A deadlocked local-option fight, a women's eight-hour bill that ended in fisticuffs, and a marriage law barring 'drunkards' and the 'feeble-minded' — the 1909 legislature's chaotic home stretch.
- A Legislature in the Homestretch: Saloons, Gambling and a Fight Over Pledges
With days left in Olympia, Washington lawmakers weigh local option, an anti-racetrack law, a sweeping criminal code and a bill aimed at unions and suffragists.
- The Last-Week Jam in Olympia: Liquor, Primaries and a Budget Nobody Counted
With the 60-day session expiring, Washington's lawmakers settle local option, rewrite the primary ballot, kill the initiative and abandon the joint budget committee — leaving taxpayers to foot a three-mill levy.
- Washington's Fourth Legislature Adjourns After a Marathon Final Day
Lawmakers pass 53 bills, defeat a school-book trust, kill a Seattle-Tacoma bridewell, and bury woman suffrage for at least two years.
- The Railroad Freight Fight That Nearly Forced a Special Session
Farmers and reformers pushed the Anderson railroad bill to a Senate showdown, while Gov. McGraw threatened to keep lawmakers in Olympia until freight rates came down.
- Olympia Adjourns: Reform Bills Pass, but Railroad Rate Relief Dies
Washington’s 1893 legislature closes in a rush of land, school, tax, and institution bills—while the Senate refuses to cut freight rates for Eastern Washington wheat growers.
- Olympia Moves to Outlaw the Insanity Defense — and Gag the Press on Murders
With the 1909 session half gone, Washington's legislature advances local option and an anti-racetrack gambling bill, while a sweeping new criminal code would strip juries of the insanity plea and bar newspapers from covering homicides before trial.
- The School Law That Existed Only in the Enrolled Bill
A $3,700 school-fund dispute in Spokane exposed a legislative clerk's error—and left Washington's superintendent asking whether the enrolled bill or the journals were law.
- The People vs. the Railroads: Olympia Debates a Rate Cap
While the Capitol fought off adjournment, a bill to cap passenger and freight rates reached the floor of the Washington House — with Populists demanding an up-or-down vote and railroad men asking for more time.
- The Lawmaker Who Killed His Own Railroad Bill
Rather than let opponents gut it, Representative Hoole sends his railroad and steamboat measure to an indefinite grave after a day of parliamentary jabs.
- One Day Late: The Veto That May Hang a Man
A clerk's date stamp, a messenger who cannot recall which day he ran an errand, and a condemned Italian at Tacoma whose last chance at a new appeal may have expired in the paperwork.
- "That Ticket Has Blood on It": The Night Seattle Was Haunted by a Cursed Bill
A mysterious $5 bill with a death threat scribbled on the back sparked a city-wide panic and a frantic search for two young women who vanished into the night.
- 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.
- Wild Goose Bill: The Frontier Ferryman Who Kept a Free Boat for the Poor
A Washington paper remembers W. H. Condon, a 68-year-old pioneer whose free Columbia River ferry, homemade roads and violent past made him a local legend.
- A Missing Clause Stalls the Road Through the Cascades
Whatcom and Skagit expected a governor's commission and an early start. The enrolled bill in Olympia had lost its emergency clause, and the delay was already being blamed on the wrong people.
- Spokane Falls Council Tackles Charter, Cash, and a Dead Horse
In August 1883, the Spokane Falls City Council met to discuss a new city charter, unpaid bills, street assessments, and the problem of a dead horse. The meeting offers a glimpse into the challenges of a growing frontier town.
- The County's Ledger: A Glimpse into Snohomish Life in 1877
Minutes from the Snohomish County Commissioners reveal a town in transition: new justices, bridge bids, and the quiet bureaucracy of building a community on the edge of the frontier.
- Olympia’s Capitol Fight: Donate the Land or Lose the Statehouse
A late-night Senate debate over the new state capitol turned on eleven acres, a $150,000 land scheme and whether Olympia should pay to keep the building—before the bill passed to applause.
- The Ten-Hour Day That Split Seattle’s Streetcar Men
A new state law barred Seattle’s streetcar companies from forcing motormen and conductors to work more than ten hours a day. But some workers petitioned to keep the old schedules, because they were paid by the hour.
- Samuel Hill Warns Seattle Would 'Die Like Rats in a Trap' Without Highways
As Congress weighs the Latimer and Brownlow road-funding bills, the Seattle utility magnate and son-in-law of James J. Hill makes the case that paved highways out of the city are a matter of survival, not comfort.
- The Legislature’s Endgame: Normal Schools Funded, a Central Board Killed
With ten days left, Washington lawmakers passed money for Cheney and Whatcom normal schools, killed a plan to consolidate state institutions, and left Cascade railroad routes in doubt.
- The Boss’s Math Lesson
A worker asks for a raise and receives a bizarre, exhaustive breakdown explaining why he supposedly never works a full day.
- The Railroads Beat the Farmers in Olympia
A bill to cut freight and passenger rates across Washington goes down in the state Senate after a bruising fight, handing the railroads their biggest Northwest victory yet.
- Governor McGraw Says No to Cheap Textbooks and a Cascade Road
Washington’s governor vetoes a state textbook scheme and a Naches Pass road appropriation, warning that both would waste public money—and that cheap books are not the same as good ones.
Also about this, in other words
- The Constable Who Charged for Mileage on Every Duck
A local anecdote about a frontier constable’s creative approach to fee collection.
- The Last-Day Bill Rush—and a Women’s Suffrage Amendment
Washington’s Senate introduced dozens of measures on the final day of bill introduction, from railroad assessments and a company-store ban to a referendum on votes for women.
- The Great Bill-Posting Scandal: Seattle’s First War on Urban Clutter
As the city grows, merchants are plastering every available surface with advertisements. Now, frustrated business owners are demanding the City Council step in to stop the visual chaos.
- Wild Goose Bill Meets His End in a Cattle Dispute
The famed Big Bend pioneer and his assailant both die in a shootout at Condon's Ferry, twelve miles north of Wilbur.
- The Tragedian and the Seventy-Cent Bill
A famous actor finds himself haunted by a small, unpaid restaurant check that follows him across the country like a bad omen.
- Virginia Bill’s Riverbed Gold Rush
An enterprising miner plans to use a steamer’s machinery to pull gold from the Okanogan River, boasting a massive payout before winter arrives.
- The Brotherly Brawl That Stopped the Boat
When two brothers’ disagreement over work on the Sound led to a public fight and a lawsuit, a clever attorney used the distraction of a boat departure to force a reconciliation.
- Wild Goose Bill Dies in the Doorway of the Hollis King Ranch
The squatter who founded the town of Wilbur came to the King ranch with a six-shooter, shot the woman who had left him, and was killed by the dying man who shot back.