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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 3 |
| 1877 | 2 |
| 1883 | 2 |
| 1885 | 1 |
| 1888 | 3 |
| 1889 | 2 |
| 1891 | 2 |
| 1892 | 3 |
| 1893 | 2 |
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31 stories matching busili
- The $100,000 Gamble: Yesler’s Great Lottery
To fund a mountain road, Seattle pioneer Henry Yesler turned to a massive, state-sanctioned lottery, putting his own saw mill and downtown lots on the line.
- The Railroads Are Coming for Your River: Milwaukee Road’s Secret Land Grab
Agents of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad are quietly buying up ranches along the Columbia below Priest Rapids, signaling a massive hydroelectric and irrigation project that will reshape the region's power grid.
- Army Deployed Against Railroad Developers on Puyallup Land
Federal troops are dispatched to the Puyallup Reservation to physically stop a construction party from grading a railroad through Indigenous land.
- Caught in the Dynamo: A Tacoma Worker Squeezed to Death at His Post
Edward H. Curran was at his station in the Tacoma Light and Water Company's electric plant when the machinery pulled him through a gap far too small for a man, breaking nearly every bone in his body.
- Seattle Rebuilds After Fire, Clearing Ruins and Sheltering Residents
Following the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, the city grapples with the logistics of debris clearance, housing relief, and the return of labor.
- Roslyn Coal Strike: Company Threatens to Import Black Strikebreakers
As the 1894 coal strike drags on, Roslyn miners refuse a 20 percent pay cut. The company’s answer: import Black workers from Chicago to break the union, a move that would reshape the town.
- Snoqualmie Falls: The Dawn of Clean Energy in Seattle
A century before the green energy transition, the city’s early industry turned away from coal and toward the 'falling waters' of Snoqualmie to power a growing metropolis.
- The Gold Rush That Wasn't: How Seattle’s Prospectors Fooled the Town
In May 1877, a wave of excitement swept through Seattle over reports of rich gold deposits on the Nootsack River. But when the 'prospectors' finally arrived with their claims, it turned out to be an elaborate confidence trick designed to drain the town's cash reserves.
- The French Laundry War
When an abusive husband tried to have his wife and her assistant evicted and arrested, he found that the women of the 'French Laundry' weren't going down without a fight.
- Lawmakers Pocketed Mileage for Railroad Passes They Rode Free
A Tacoma editor accuses Washington legislators of charging the state for travel they never paid for — and then shouting for reform.
- The Struggle for a Mountain Wagon Road
A persistent local pioneer lobbies for a Snoqualmie Pass road to connect Eastern Washington farmers to Puget Sound ports.
- The Making of a Suburb
A speculative land development project christened 'Sunnyside' promises a model residential section and a dedicated site for a state capital.
- The '$11,000 Gold' Sack That Held Only Tire Chains
A suffrage lobbyist carried a bank sack labeled with a fortune through Spokane and Olympia, letting fellow passengers believe she was transporting the campaign fund. It was full of automobile chains.
- The Poultry Aristocracy of 1895 Seattle
A Sound Poultry Club show filled a hall with prize pigeons, canaries, and incubator chicks—including a homing pigeon said to be the fastest in the world.
- 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.
- Aberdeen's Schoolhouse Standoff: Bonds, Bids, and a $3,000 Lot
A petition drive and a landowner's counteroffer stalled the city's new school while the board tried to build around the bond money.
- The Town That Might Move: Wenatchee Waits on the Great Northern
With the railroad undecided on its Columbia River crossing, Wenatchee's townsite company threatens to relocate the whole town—just as North Yakima was moved—and engineers send divers to probe the riverbed.
- The Real Estate Boom at Salmon Bay
A speculative land development promises a suburban future in Seattle’s north side, betting on railroad connectivity.
- A Final Canoe Journey for Mary Ann
Community members mourn the passing of an Indigenous woman and prepare for her transport by canoe to Victoria.
- The Real Estate Boom of Salmon Bay
Promotional copy for a 1888 Seattle subdivision promise rapid riches, mirroring the city's perpetual hunger for land development.
- The Mysterious Death of a 'Well-Known Character'
When Mary Todhunter was found dead in a locked room in New Westminster, her complicated past as an alleged heiress and runaway brought a dark local scandal to the surface.
- The 1893 Plan to Untangle Seattle’s Government
A powerful city official wanted a stronger mayor, a one-house council, and fewer commissions—arguments Seattle still has today.
- A Crate of Sweet Potatoes to Sell the Desert
Land agents pack up the valley's finest produce — mammoth sugar beets, honeydew casabas, and one 250-pound potato crop — and ship it to Chicago to convince Eastern buyers that this sagebrush country is a garden.
- Dredging the Pend Oreille for Steamboats
A Seattle contractor will put a centrifugal-pump dredge below Boundary Island, aiming for a 70-foot channel six feet deep so river boats can stop creeping over the bars.
- A Miner's Pockets Full of Gold Nuggets — and a Placer Strike 40 Miles From Town
A Spokane Falls businessman bound for the Cœur d'Alene mines never got there, but came back with nuggets and gold-crusted quartz from a richer claim far nearer home.