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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1859 | 1 |
| 1876 | 2 |
| 1877 | 3 |
| 1878 | 1 |
| 1883 | 1 |
| 1885 | 1 |
| 1886 | 1 |
| 1889 | 2 |
| 1891 | 1 |
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| 1894 | 5 |
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29 stories matching compact
- Washington's 1889 Convention Settles Prohibition, Corporations
Delegates in Olympia rush to finalize state constitutional provisions, including contentious debates over railroad commissions and alien land ownership.
- The Organizing Power of Everett’s Women
Rose B. Moore reflects on a summer of mobilizing union women and shares a vision for the future of social labor.
- The Struggle to Open Snoqualmie Pass
A pioneer successfully demonstrates the feasibility of winter transit, igniting hope for a direct route between Eastern and Western Washington.
- Chinatown Ash and Ember: A City Under Siege
A devastating fire levels the Chinese quarter in Tacoma, leaving the community in ruins and stoking the fires of anti-Chinese agitation.
- The Empire of Lime: How Roche Harbor Built a Company Town
By 1891, the San Juan archipelago had been transformed from a series of failed ventures into a million-dollar industrial powerhouse, complete with its own church, school, and company store.
- Five Levels Down, Orient's First Thought Mine Hits a Wall of Gold
A sixty-foot stope averaging better than $100 a ton — and assays running to $800 — convinces the Stevens County camp that the deeper it digs, the richer the ground gets.
- Washington Territory's Eight-Year Push for Statehood
A Senate floor speech details the eight-year struggle for Washington Territory to shed its frontier status and become a state, including the controversial proposal to annex Idaho's northern panhandle.
- Steilacoom’s Editor Asks Who Will Start the Fire Brigade
With wooden buildings packed into the business district and no reservoir, engine or ladder company, the Puget Sound Herald warns that a single blaze could erase the town’s prospects.
- Two Shots, a Cold River, and a Flask of Rat Poison
Frederick Angle fired twice at his wife, jumped in the river, and then drank Rough on Rats with a friend who did not survive it. The stomach pump arrived, in the paper's words, 'unfortunately' too soon.
- The Rambling Village That Wanted to Be a City
An 1876 editorial reflects on Seattle’s humble, sprawling aesthetic, arguing that the lack of architectural grandeur was not a failure of taste, but a deliberate, democratic strategy to avoid the 'unhealthy' wealth concentration of Eastern cities.
- The Unfortunate Travels of an 'Imperial' Grifter
A self-proclaimed Russian noble finds that Seattle hospitality—and the local church choir—has its limits when his 'aristocratic' habits turn out to be nothing more than petty fraud.
- Seattle Begins Filling Its Tide Flats
Surveyors lay the base line and piledrivers start a brush-and-earth bulkhead along Railroad Avenue, turning watery flats into buildable ground.
- An Hour From Canada: The Kansas Fugitive Caught in a Bellingham Barber Shop
Frank Greenwood fled Kansas after a seduction charge, hoping to disappear into Washington and then British Columbia. A persistent Kansas detective tracked him to New Whatcom, where he was arrested in his brother’s barber shop—just an hour before he meant to be gone.
- The Idle Crowd: Seattle's 1877 Moral Panic over 'Street Loafers'
A local editor observes the growing ranks of the unemployed and 'non-descript' men gathering on Seattle corners, questioning how they survive in a bustling, labor-dependent territory.
- The Great Partition: Why Walla Walla Wants to Leave Washington
A fiery editorial warns that the eastern half of the territory is plotting to join Oregon, leaving Seattle and the Puget Sound region stranded in a 'provincial' limbo.
- The Great Land Grab: Citizens Unite to Stop the Railroad's Theft of Public Soil
In a packed meeting at Reinig’s Hall, Snohomish leaders condemn the Northern Pacific Railway for hoarding millions of acres while building a secret coal line, vowing to fight Congress to return the land to settlers.
- A Downtown Church Outgrows Its 1856 Home
Olympia's Methodists are quietly preparing to raise a new church at Fifth and Adams, honoring the pioneers who built the old one on Fourth — and the 375 souls who now fill the pews.
- The First Engine: How One Machinist Built Seattle’s Heart
In April 1877, a local machinist named Mr. Bullene constructed the first engine ever built in Seattle for Stetson & Post’s new lumber mill, marking a pivotal moment in the city's industrial infancy.
- Seattle's Milk Supply Caught in a Secret Trust
A quiet combination of milk dealers and a new condensed milk company threatens to control prices, squeeze out independents, and lock Skagit farmers into low-paying contracts.
- Monte Cristo’s Residents vs. the Placer Claim
A federal commissioner orders a new hearing in the fight over whether a mining claim swallowed a Snohomish County townsite.
- The Million-Dollar Dry Dock Across the Sound
At Port Orchard, contractors raced to finish the largest dry dock in America—and boasted it would be third largest in the world.
- A Withdrawal, a Broken Deal, and a Senate Nominee
Levi Ankeny stepped aside, a rival bargain collapsed, and John L. Wilson rode a fifth-ballot surge to the Republican caucus nomination for U.S. senator in Olympia.
- Gov. McGraw Opens the State Road Convention at Olympia
Delegates from every county gather in the capital to plan a statewide campaign for better roads — and to demand that the political parties finally take up internal improvements.
- The Navy Secretary Goes Down Into the Big Hole
Secretary of the Navy Herbert rides the lighthouse tender Manzanita across the Sound to inspect the giant new dry dock at Port Orchard, settles a bitter dispute over how deep to drive the pilings, and dances the night away at the Rainier.
- A Judge Takes Aim at Seattle's Charter Reformers
Judge Orange Jacobs mocks the men who promised a new city charter would cure every municipal ill — and doubts any document can make people honest.