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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 14 |
| 1877 | 9 |
| 1878 | 3 |
| 1880 | 4 |
| 1882 | 1 |
| 1883 | 3 |
| 1884 | 4 |
| 1885 | 3 |
| 1886 | 8 |
| 1887 | 5 |
| 1889 | 6 |
| 1892 | 5 |
| 1893 | 9 |
| 1894 | 14 |
| 1895 | 8 |
| 1898 | 1 |
| 1899 | 1 |
98 stories matching colman
- The Disappearance on Lake Washington
A Seattle man, his two sons, and a neighbor vanish after a bitter land dispute, leaving only a bloodstained boat drifting in the reeds.
- The Strange Disappearance of James Colman and Wilbur Patten
A prominent Seattle businessman and a young schoolboy vanish while crossing Lake Washington, sparking immediate fears of a violent, land-related murder.
- The Waterfront Right-of-Way War
Prominent developer J. M. Colman seeks to block a railroad from cutting through his prime real estate, claiming the company forfeited its right-of-way by price-gouging.
- The Man Who Thought He Owned Seattle Died Chasing a Ghost Fortune
Henry Zechow spent nine years and a small army of lawyers trying to claim an uncle's imaginary empire—including a block of downtown Seattle—before his body turned up in the Fraser River.
- The Dream That Found Two Bodies in Lake Washington
A double murder near Mercer Island, a suspect tried four times and never convicted, and a daughter's suicide—the lake tragedy that haunted the Colman-Patten case for years.
- The Last-Second Injunction That Saved a Seattle Building From the Railroad
Judge Langley cleared the way for demolition, then a federal mortgage-holder's suit stopped the axes at the Colman block.
- The Forger Who Ordered Champagne to the Mansion of J. M. Colman
For two weeks a smooth-talking stranger worked Front Street with forged order slips and a taste for the good stuff — until six bottles of champagne went to the wrong address.
- Bodies of Colman and Patten Recovered from Lake Washington
After weeks of searching, a homemade underwater viewing device helps recover the bodies of two men murdered on the water.
- The Shadow of the Noose: The Murder Trial of O.B. Miller
A gripping courtroom drama unfolds in Seattle as O.B. Miller faces his third trial for the 1887 murder of two men on Lake Washington.
- The Secretive Coal King of Seattle
James M. Colman is quietly opening the McCallister mine, signaling a new industrial play near Renton.
- The Railroad and the Riparian Rights
Colman seeks injunction against railroad's Columbia Street track extension over contract and riparian claims.
- The Architect of the Seattle & Walla Walla Railroad Steps Down
J.M. Colman resigns from the railway company to pursue private ventures and a long-deferred trip to Scotland.
- The Sawmill Scandal: Henry Yesler’s Long Legal War
Before the city grew, Seattle’s founding titan was locked in a decade-long, bitter courtroom battle over his sawmill, revealing the ruthless undercurrents of the frontier economy.
- The Decades-Long Battle Over Yesler’s Mill
A landmark legal struggle over the future of Seattle’s foundational sawmill reaches a tense standoff in the courts.
- Inquest Probes Patten and Colman Deaths on Lake Washington
Testimony from an inquest into the suspicious deaths of Patten and Colman near the shores of Lake Washington.
- Railroad War on the Waterfront
A bitter legal battle over a disputed right-of-way erupts into accusations of perjury in court as railroad crews prepare to tear down a local businessman’s building.
- The Inside Story of Seattle's Rail Woes
John Leary reveals why plans for a railroad to the Cedar River coal fields have stalled, exposing the delicate dance between local boosters and coal barons.
- The Industrial Gamble That Defined a City
How local visionary James M. Colman pushed Seattle into the future by betting his fortune—and demanding the town follow suit—on a critical rail link to the coal mines.
- The Miners at Cedar River Take a Stand
When management ignored their ultimatum to discharge Chinese laborers, the miners at the Cedar River coal mines walked off the job in a confrontation that tested the limits of labor power in 1885.
- Brutal Murder of Two Settlers
A Canadian man and his sons arrested for the cold-blooded killing of two men traveling to Seattle to provide evidence in a murder case.
- The Unstoppable Rail Builder of 1877
How James M. Colman bet his personal fortune to push the Seattle & Walla Walla Railroad through the mountains, defying skeptics and funding the project on his own terms.
- The 'Ram's Horn' Tracks Cleared for Construction
A Supreme Court ruling clears the way for the Columbia & Puget Sound Railroad to proceed with construction, settling a long-standing legal battle over land access.
- The Waterfront Tug-of-War (Feb 14, 1894)
A legal stalemate halts railroad track expansion as property owners fight for their land rights.
- 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 War on the Wharf-Eating Teredo
After five years of experimentation, a Seattle developer discovers that creosoted piles are the only way to save the city's waterfront from the voracious wood-boring mollusk.
Also about this, in other words
- Colville Cabin Tragedy
A friendship ends in violence when a woodsman reportedly loses his sanity and kills his employer.
- A Sinking Buggy, a Borrowed Team, and a Reservation About to Open
In 1892 a newspaperman packed his wife and infant into a rickety buggy to cross the soon-to-open Colville Reservation, fording the Kettle River and leaning on Native families along the way.
- The Dairyman Who Waited at the Jail Door for the Jury
Jurors touring Colville's new county prison met a freshly convicted man, Dan Elgie of Onion Creek, who called every man on his panel by name and told him exactly what he thought.
- Blood and Bullets in Colville
A railroad worker's lethal temper leads to a dramatic manhunt near Colville as a suspect flees on horseback after a double shooting.
- A 1.5-Million-Acre Taking: The Colville Reservation Was About to Be Thrown Open
Federal officials and land agents anticipated a rush of white homesteaders into the southern half of the Colville Indian Reservation, framing Indigenous land as 'closed' and state growth as its natural destiny.
- The Colville Reservation Is Surveyed for White Settlement
A treaty strips the Colville Indian Reservation down to individual allotments, and surveyors are called to run more than 1,000 miles of lines across northeastern Washington.
- Tension and Violence at the Colville Reservation
Settlers at Colville petition for military intervention following reports of burned hay fields and armed conflict with local Indigenous people.
- While Newport Stalled, Colville Planned a Stage Line to Capture the Metaline Trade
A proposed telephone franchise had been sitting before Newport’s council for five months. In Colville, businessmen were already organizing a tri-weekly stage route to the Metaline mines and post offices.