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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 2 |
| 1865 | 1 |
| 1871 | 1 |
| 1876 | 3 |
| 1877 | 3 |
| 1878 | 3 |
| 1880 | 1 |
| 1882 | 1 |
| 1883 | 6 |
| 1884 | 1 |
| 1885 | 4 |
| 1886 | 2 |
| 1887 | 3 |
| 1888 | 6 |
| 1889 | 6 |
| 1891 | 3 |
| 1892 | 12 |
| 1893 | 10 |
| 1894 | 5 |
| 1895 | 7 |
| 1899 | 1 |
| 1900 | 1 |
| 1902 | 1 |
| 1903 | 4 |
| 1904 | 5 |
| 1908 | 1 |
| 1909 | 1 |
| 1916 | 1 |
| 1917 | 1 |
| 1918 | 2 |
98 stories matching descent
- The Diver’s Quest for the Sunken Mystic
An underwater salvage attempt on a Seattle tugboat encounters extreme darkness and technical difficulties at 190 feet.
- They Climbed Rainier First—and Slept in a Sulphur-Scented Ice Cave
In 1870, Hazard Stevens and P. B. Van Trump reached Mount Rainier's summit after a brutal 10½-hour climb, then spent a freezing night beside volcanic steam vents.
- 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.
- Olympia’s Booster Year: Brick, Bridges and a 50,000-Person Promise
As 1891 closed, the capital city counted $3 million in new buildings, a record bridge, electric lights and new rail lines — and predicted 50,000 residents within a decade.
- The Night They Slept in Rainier's Ice Caves
A Seattle climbing party returns from Mount Rainier after a storm-bound night in the summit ice caves—and Tacoma greets them like a circus.
- The Cave at the End of the Boundary Trail
A 1908 Newport writer follows a blazed trail north of Metaline into a limestone cavern of bath-like basins, a 'Guardian of the Baths' and a music room already being vandalized.
- The Battle for Seattle’s Soul
Tensions boil over between labor organizers and the property-owning elite over the presence of Chinese workers, as the city teeters on the edge of mob rule.
- The Siege and Tragedy at Friday Harbor
A reclusive farmer's descent into madness and murder in the San Juan Islands ended in a gruesome, fiery standoff with local law enforcement.
- The Tragic Cost of Seattle's Early Cable Cars
A mother sacrifices her life to save her children after a runaway cable car loses its grip at Second and Pine, exposing the perils of the city’s rapid, unregulated infrastructure boom.
- The Battle for Seattle's Soul
On the eve of a contentious city election in 1886, two rival political factions clashed at the Opera House, setting the stage for a fight over the future of labor, law, and the anti-Chinese riots.
- Diver Paralyzed After Deep-Sea Shift
A professional diver working to clear the Seattle harbor is left paralyzed from the shoulders down after repeated descents.
- A City Turns Out for Its Dead: Seattle's Memorial Day, 1895
Three hundred and five veterans, three militia companies, high-school cadets and a twelve-foot column of flowers marched Front Street and filled the Seattle Theater — while the Board of Health kept the schoolchildren from singing.
- The Anti-Vaccination Protest of 1909
Tacoma parents, barred from sending their children to public schools, organize a legislative campaign against compulsory vaccination laws.
- The Tacoma Tragedy: A Father's Descent into Madness
Seattle mourns the Walters family, whose recent murder-suicide in Tacoma has shaken the community. The paper reflects on the fragility of sanity when grief and financial ruin collide.
- The Tragedy of the Diver in Tacoma Harbor
A routine salvage operation to reach a sunken vessel turned fatal when a burst air pipe left a diver trapped in the depths of Puget Sound.
- The Tragedy at No. 21 Nixons Street
A Puget Sound trader’s sudden descent into madness leaves a wife dead and himself in his blood on the floor of their attic home.
- The Stone That Crushed: A Fatal Day at Seattle’s City Hall
Two men are killed and another left for dead when a scaffold collapses during the construction of the new municipal building, exposing the deadly risks of civic ambition in 1877.
- The Price of Loyalty in Kennewick
Mayor Sherk forms a Vigilance Corps to monitor local residents for signs of 'disloyalty' toward the U.S. war effort.
- A Ruling on the Geary Act
Commissioner Emery issues a new interpretation of Chinese Exclusion, ordering deportation based on the failure to register under the Geary Act.
- The Boy Who Squirted Ammonia: A Spokane Youth’s Descent into Infamy
Officer Ike keeps a watchful eye on Tobias, the 'bad boy' of the Cineograph theater, after he becomes a fugitive from home and targets Japanese children with chemical pranks.
- The Man Who Thought He Was Being Hunted: A Walla Walla Tragedy
A prosperous farmer’s descent into religious mania ends with his confinement at Medical Lake, revealing the era's fragile understanding of mental health.
- A Kenton Picnic Speech and the Justification of Native Displacement
At a Kenton picnic, Judge Orange Jacobs cast pioneer survival as historical necessity and used dehumanizing rhetoric to defend the displacement of Native Americans.
- The Fatal Climb for the Church Bells
A local carpenter attempted to scale a church steeple to settle a debate about height, meeting a tragic end in full view of the town.
- The Strange Odyssey of the Boy and the Stolen Buggy
When a 17-year-old was caught stealing a horse and buggy, his strange behavior revealed not a criminal mind, but a tragic descent into mental illness.
- The Daredevil of Seattle: A Near-Fatal Balloon Plunge
Thousands watched from the waterfront as Professor Van Tassell's aerial exhibition went awry, nearly ending in disaster over the harbor.
Also about this, in other words
- A Perilous Descent Down Cowychee Hill
When a team of horses spooked on a steep grade, a local farmer had to make a split-second decision to save his family.
- A Ninety-Foot Fall Down an Icy Mountain—and He Walked Away
William Wade tumbled down a steep incline in the Cascades while hunting mountain goats, bounding off icy benches before disappearing under a snowbank. He survived with bruises and a sprained ankle.
- Trapped by the Mountain’s Fury
A terrifying narrow escape as a winter slide nearly claims a mountain boarding house.
- The Fragile Earth Beneath Our Feet
An 1877 editorial from the Seattle Daily Intelligencer warns that the city's obsession with waste and its failure to return fertility to the land mirror the downfall of Rome.
- A Perilous Ascent on Front Street
A construction worker suffers a violent fall while building a new home, sparking a community health scare in 1870s Seattle.
- A Child’s Fall into a City Excavation
A young girl’s tumble into a construction pit sparks a damages lawsuit against an investment firm.
- A daring descent into the dark
Two women make history by descending 2,000 feet into the Oregon Coal Company mine at Coal Creek.
- The Weight of Responsibility: A Victorian Lesson for Snohomish Parents
In an 1877 editorial, a Snohomish observer argued that character was a hereditary and domestic inheritance, placing the burden of societal progress squarely on the shoulders of the home.