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108 stories matching clay
- The Clay Under Seattle Built a Million-Dollar Industry
King County clay works turned local deposits into firebrick, paving brick, sewer pipe and architectural terra cotta—winning federal tests and employing hundreds of men.
- The Industrial Boom of Van Asselt's Sewer Pipe
A newly discovered deposit of clay near the Green River births a factory, employing eighty men and shaping the city’s infrastructure.
- The Streetcar Brawl at Ninth Street
A fare dispute turned violent when a Tacoma streetcar conductor armed himself with a heavy switch hook against a passenger, only to be beaten with his own weapon.
- The Hidden Wealth of Kittitas
A researcher discovers remarkably rich aluminum clay near Ellensburg, potentially transforming the region's industrial future.
- The Heirs Who Came for a Snohomish Subdivision — and Went Home Empty
Five years of litigation over half of a $40,000 estate ends in a demurrer: under the law of 1879, a dead wife's share of the community property belonged to her husband, and the people who bought lots in the Clay addition can keep their houses.
- The Wild Ride Home
A boastful passenger learns the hard way not to challenge a driver on the rough, uneven roads of the lower valley.
- The Search for Fruitful Soil in the Seattle Basin
A pioneer orchardist shares a nineteen-year struggle to master the stubborn, clay-heavy soils of the Duwamish Valley and the Puget Sound region.
- Seattle's Sewers Were Cracking All Over Town — and the City Engineer Blamed the Dirt
A furious letter writer insists the pipes broke not from 'percussion' but from the very worst kind of trench work — and points the finger straight at the man in charge.
- 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 Buried Forest Beneath Denny Hill
Excavations for a new industrial facility in Seattle reveal a startling subterranean history: an ancient, preserved forest resting 22 feet beneath the city's surface.
- Engineering a Solution for the Fourteenth Street Slide
City Engineer Thomson outlines an expensive plan to halt the recurring, dangerous earth movements in the Beacon Hill district.
- When Seattle Was Coal Country
A detailed 1895 survey shows King County leading Washington's coal output, with Seattle shipping fuel to California, Oregon, and the Midwest—while labor troubles and spontaneous mine fires shadowed the boom.
- Little Falls Fire Clay Plant Reopens with Tacoma Sewer Contract
After months of silence due to the economic 'dull times,' the Washington Fire Clay Company resumes operations to fulfill a massive city infrastructure order.
- Help Wanted: The Railroad Boom Outran the Workforce
Crews at Sullivan Creek and Box Canyon needed hundreds more men as clay, springs, and slides slowed the Inland Empire's rail-and-dam boom.
- A Hundred Feet of Great Northern Trestle Slips Toward the River
Wet, frozen clay undermines the fill east of Newport, forcing railroad crews to wait for a pile driver before they can rebuild.
- The Pioneer Potter of Lake Union
Before high-rises dominated the shore, a small-scale artisan operated a humble pottery studio near Lake Union, hoping to turn local clay into a lasting industry.
- Introducing Game Birds to the Sound
The Seattle Rod and Gun Club aims to make the Puget Sound district a premier sporting destination by importing Ohio clay birds and game.
- Unemployed Rail Worker Attempts Suicide After Years of Hardship
A former American Railway Union member, struggling to find work since the great strike, attempts to take his own life near the Denny clay works.
- The Mayor Fires Two Police Commissioners to Keep Blackchapel Shut
In a single day, Mayor Phelps removed two police commissioners, accused them of conspiring to protect a red-light district and oust Chief Rogers, and installed replacements before the House of Delegates could slow him down.
- The Town That Owned Nothing: Metaline's Squatters Fight Two Companies for Their Own Ground
Fifty residents of an unsurveyed Pend Oreille River mining camp petition the Spokane land office for a federal townsite — after a silver-lead company and a cement-clay claimant both tried to patent the ground out from under their homes.
- The Courthouse Mud Trap
A dangerous quagmire on Third Street leaves citizens stuck in the clay on their way to justice.
- The Great Timber Land Swindle: How Seattle’s Elite Claimed Farmable Soil as Forest
A federal commissioner rules that the lands held by Bailey and Hawley are actually fertile agricultural soil, not timber land, overturning decades of speculative entries in the Samish Lake district.
- The Hilltop Slip: Seattle’s Shifting Waterfront
Decades before the regrades reshaped the city, residents of the Belltown waterfront watched their homes slide into the bay as the ground beneath them turned to quicksand.
- The Road to Nowhere: How Seattle’s Leaders Left Lake Washington Residents Stranded in Mud
In March 1877, residents living between the city and Lake Washington found their commute impossible. The city council ignored petitions for a proper road, offering only fir boughs and gravel dust as solutions.
- The Sliding Main Street Hillside
A recently completed street project on Main Street is already being reclaimed by the earth as the steep, clay-rich hillside slides into town.
Also about this, in other words
- The Tragic Cost of Playing in the Seattle Clay
A makeshift fort at the edge of the city became a tomb when a riverbank collapsed, claiming the life of a young boy.
- The Coal That Wasn't: A Town’s Brief Hope for a Mining Bonanza
A newcomer to Seattle claims to have found a vein of coal in the hills, sparking local excitement before the details vanish into silence.
- The Unopened Wealth of Eastern Washington
University of Washington researchers argue that the state’s massive kaolin and feldspar deposits could transform Spokane into a ceramic powerhouse.
- The Great Pyramid of Washington Coal
An 1885 call-to-arms for Seattle citizens to display their bounties—from record-breaking wheat to massive chunks of coal—to prove to the world that 'Oregon is King' might actually be challenged by Washington.
- The Miner Who Hung by His Teeth
A coal miner's miraculous survival after a terrifying fall through a trestle near Palmer highlights the dangers of early industrial work.
- Worker Injured in Elevator Shaft Fall
A mortar man narrowly survives a thirty-foot plummet at the construction site of the Cadwell building.
- A Frontier Independence Day Warning
On the Fourth of July, 1891, Senator Claypool delivers a scathing critique of corporate power, political corruption, and the shifting identity of a growing nation.
- The Price of Building Seattle
An 1876 notice reveals the commodification of local clay as Seattle's rapid expansion begins to reshape the landscape.