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|---|---|
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1,014 stories matching coal
- 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.
- The Navy Preferred British Coal. Seattle Wouldn’t Let It Go.
When the Bering Sea fleet was ordered to take Comox coal instead of Puget Sound fuel, Senator Squire and local coal men forced a test—and threatened to take the fight to the Senate.
- The Price of Coal and the Cost of Labor
After shifting from Chinese laborers to white workers, mining companies find themselves in a standoff over wages that leaves miners idle and mines shuttered.
- The Navy Bunkered Abroad While Seattle Coal Sat in the Harbor
When the USS Monterey steamed north to Puget Sound to test Washington coal, it exposed a sore point: U.S. warships had long been burning British Columbia fuel right past Seattle and Tacoma's own coal docks.
- Uncle Sam Trades British Coal for a Bellingham Bay Mine
A test run by the Yorktown won Blue Canyon coal a federal contract—and local boosters dared to imagine Puget Sound fuel powering the nation’s ships.
- A Coal Elevator Gives Way at the Foot of Madison Street
Two coal cars and three workers fall twenty feet when a corroded hydraulic cylinder bursts at the Seattle Coal & Iron Company bunkers; all escape without a scratch.
- Seattle's Bid to Be the Liverpool of America
In 1895, boosters imagined a Lake Washington ship canal turning Puget Sound into a freshwater harbor for world commerce, coal trade, and naval power.
- A Coal Town Crawls Back From the Fire That Entombed Forty Miners
Six months after the Coal Creek disaster, a reporter follows Newcastle's superintendent a thousand feet underground into the new mine the company is racing to make bigger than the one it lost.
- Down the Dark Drift: A Tour of Seattle’s Coal Mines
In December 1876, a reporter takes readers on an arduous journey from Lake Union to Newcastle to witness the grueling labor and industrial scale of Puget Sound's most vital industry.
- The Coal King’s Dilemma: Seattle vs. the World
As global markets crash and foreign rivals flood San Francisco with cheap fuel, local miners and merchants scramble to save their industry from extinction.
- The Next Pittsburg: Seattle’s Coal Rush
A new mine opens across the Cedar River, fueling hopes that the young city of Seattle will soon become a major center for iron and coal production.
- The Whaleback That Made Puget Sound Look Impossible
Seattle crowds toured the strange, cigar-shaped City of Everett before it steamed out with nearly 4,000 tons of coal—the largest shipment yet from the Oregon Improvement Company’s bunkers.
- Roslyn Miners End a Three-Month Strike — and Return to the Pits at a 20 Percent Cut
After a bitter walkout against the Northern Pacific Coal Company, the miners of Roslyn vote almost unanimously to accept reduced wages and go back to work — a surrender that some say was hastened when a handful of Black miners from Franklin were brought in to take their places.
- The Battle for Roslyn’s Coal Fields
A legal challenge emerges against the Northern Pacific Coal Company, as locals allege a fraudulent scheme to seize even-numbered sections of the lucrative coal-rich territory.
- The 75-Foot Coal Chute Plunge
A dock worker survived a terrifying descent through a ship's coal bunker, landing 75 feet below in the hold.
- Vast Coal Seams Found Beneath South Tacoma
Drilling for water reveals a significant, potentially commercial coal deposit within city limits.
- The Buried Wealth of King County: Seattle’s Industrial Rise
How a series of accidental discoveries and ambitious railway projects transformed the coal industry around Seattle, turning the region into an industrial powerhouse of the Pacific Northwest.
- The Price of Heat: Challenging the Seattle Coal Monopoly
An editorial analysis exposes how a concentration of control in the coal industry is gouging Seattle residents while stifling competition.
- The Deep Freeze Coal Famine
With record-breaking snow and railroad blockades, Kennewick faces a chilling shortage of fuel and the potential return of oil lamps.
- Coal Beneath the Prairie
Drillers for the city water department strike a coal vein in South Tacoma, suggesting the city may be sitting on a major fuel field.
- An Eight-Foot Seam of Coal Turns Up on a Pend Oreille County Ranch
The 'coal strike' on the Dieder place near Dalkena is bigger than first reported — eight feet wide instead of three — and Newport is already dreaming of a mine, a spur, cheaper fuel and a new town tributary to its own.
- The Navy's Test of Bellingham Bay Coal
Secretary Herbert clarifies that Bellingham Bay coal tests for the Pacific fleet are not conclusive, signaling a win for Senator Squire against British interests.
- A Breath of Fire-Damp Killed Twenty-Three Blue Canyon Miners
A coal-mine explosion near Lake Whatcom wiped out nearly an entire shift just before it was due to change, leaving only two survivors to tell what happened underground.
- The Great Land Grab: Tacoma Citizens Unite Against Northern Pacific’s ‘Squatter’ Tactics
In a packed hall at Reinig’s Hall, leading citizens condemn the railroad’s seizure of public lands and its attempt to claim hundreds of thousands of acres for a coal line that will never be built.
- The Cold Truth at City Hall
A winter coal shortage brings a parade of desperate applicants to a city official who doles out fuel with a mix of bureaucratic cruelty and casual dismissals.
Also about this, in other words
- A Massive New Coal Vein in the Cascades
A promising sixteen-foot-thick deposit of high-quality coal is discovered near the foothills of the Cascades, sparking speculation about a new rail line.
- 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 Smoke of Industry at Newcastle
An anonymous correspondent reports on the boom-time conditions, mining accidents, and the arrival of curious elites at the coal-rich settlement of Newcastle in 1878.
- The Seattle Coal Cooperative of 1876
A century and a half ago, Seattle workers formed a mutual benefit mining company to secure their own fuel and profits.
- Coal Exports Decline as Industry Shifts
Seattle's coal industry faces a slump, prompting local mine owners to lobby for protectionist tariffs against Australian imports.
- The Coal Wealth of the Cascades
Vast mining operations in Carbonado and Newcastle drive the regional economy and fuel the push for new transcontinental rail connections.
- The Unending Mountain: The Promise of the Newcastle Coal Mines
A detailed 1878 report on the labor, engineering, and seemingly limitless coal wealth of the Newcastle mines, then the engine of Seattle’s industrial future.
- The Great Coal Tariff Debate
An 1876 editorial argues for high protectionist tariffs on coal to shield Puget Sound mining wages from foreign competition and low-wage labor.