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41 stories matching deter
- The Futility of the Gallows
One month after Seattle's first judicial execution of a white man, the local press questions whether state-sanctioned violence actually deters crime or simply breeds contempt for the law.
- Judge Bell’s Hard Line on City Crime
A Seattle judge hands down stiff prison sentences for robbery to deter the criminal element in the city.
- The Judge and the Vigilantes: A Seattle Lynching Mystery
A local jurist finds himself on a coroner's jury for a vigilante killing, sparking a fierce public debate over whether the law should be enforced by the courts or by the 'indignant populace.'
- A Midnight Knock, a Bloody Hat, and the Farmer Who Vanished
Charles Gloystein joined an oath-bound farmers’ society near Mica, tried to leave, and disappeared. A bloody hat was all searchers found.
- The Alderman, the Streetcar Man, and the Offer to 'Make It All Right'
Alderman J. Eugene Jordan answers a St. Louis letter from street-railway manager E. F. Wittler, denying personal spite while insisting that an investigation will expose who tried to buy a vote on the car lines.
- The Smoke House Kid Comes to See His Dead Chief
A fugitive from a deadly Seattle jailbreak is caught on the street and taken to the morgue, where he stands over the body of the outlaw Tom Blanck.
- The 'Whitecap' Land Pirates of Lake Wenatchee
A vigilante gang is terrorizing settlers and extorting newcomers on government land in Okanogan County.
- Police Officer Arrested for Brutal Assault on Wife
A longtime member of the Tacoma police department was jailed after violently beating his wife and threatening his children during a domestic dispute.
- The City Council's Yellow Flag Fiasco
When Seattle officials passed a health ordinance to curb contagion, they refused to apply it to a notorious local brothel, sparking a public outcry against political hypocrisy.
- The Shadow of the Indian Wars in the Snohomish Valley
As rumors of conflict and uprisings on the upper Columbia stir the frontier, Snohomish locals organize a volunteer militia to defend their settlements.
- The Railroad's Land Grab: How Northern Pacific Hoarded Snohomish’s Future
A local resident exposes the legal loopholes allowing the railroad to retain millions of acres in Western Washington, arguing that this concentrated ownership is strangling settlement and keeping land prices artificially high.
- An Immigration House for New Arrivals
North Yakima citizens bankroll a temporary housing facility for newcomers searching for homesteads.
- The $80,000 Cranberry Bog Behind the Ilwaco Beach
A state commissioner tours Pacific County's cranberry marsh — 1,600 acres, 7,280 bushels shipped to San Francisco, 200 pickers at fifty cents a bushel, and a company openly hoping to replace its Chinese crew with white labor.
- The High-Fence Strategy Against 'Vagabonds'
In an attempt to deter 'traveling vagabonds' from loitering in Seattle's waterfront district, the city's rail companies have erected a 16-foot-high barricade.
- Fifty Cases of Scarlet Fever and One Health Officer
As scarlet fever spreads through Seattle, an editorial defends the city health board against parents resisting school closures.
- The Streetcar Company That Asked Olympia for Land—and Promised the Moon by July 4
In 1892, the Olympia Light & Power Company pitched an electric railway to Tumwater as a bargain for landowners: donate a strip or an acre, and watch city-limit land double in value. The trust deed gave them until Independence Day to make it real.
- A Miner's Last Spree: The Newcastle Suicide That Shocked a Coal Town
August Sanders, a veteran Newcastle coal miner, shot himself after a drinking spree and the Coal Creek fire left him broke—an intimate glimpse of life and despair in Washington's coal country.
- The Price of Poverty in 1877 Seattle
When the County Commissioners opened a new poor house, they explicitly designed it as a workhouse to deter the 'dissolute class' from seeking public assistance.
- Bismarck’s Bluff: Germany Claims Samoa While Washington Watches
As the German Chancellor declares no treaty prevents his nation from seizing control of the Pacific islands, U.S. officials in Washington struggle to respond to a diplomatic crisis that threatens American interests across the ocean.
- The Price of a 'Boom'
In 1889, the Post-Intelligencer rebuked city leaders for prioritizing the 'boom' over public sanitation, warning that a failure to build a proper sewer system would inevitably bring pestilence to a rapidly growing Seattle.
- Street Robberies Rise in Under-Patrolled Everett
A string of Saturday night muggings in the residential districts has residents on edge, sparking calls to restore police staffing levels.
- The Business of Reclaiming the Desert
Mayor Nichols speaks on the promise and economic potential of the Northern Pacific, Yakima & Kittitas Irrigation Company.
- The Road to Prosperity or a Taxpayer's Trap?
Prominent Aberdeen citizens clash over a contentious bond measure for county-wide road development.
- Four British Sailors Jump Ship—and Find American Liberty at Port Townsend
A steamer captain tried to return stowaways to Esquimalt, but a U.S. commissioner freed them, exposing a diplomatic gap over extradition.
- Roslyn's Coal Strike Ends—but the Company Wants to Blacklist Its Leaders
Miners have accepted the company's wage scale, yet the coal operator refuses to rehire the dozen men it blames for leading the strike.
Also about this, in other words
- Vigilantism in Wiser
A deputy sheriff takes three men into custody for the targeting of Chinese laborers.
- Tacoma’s Plan to Deter 'Tramps' with Forced Hygiene
Facing a seasonal rise in homelessness, Tacoma city officials considered a mandatory daily shower ordinance for jail inmates to keep the city unappealing to vagrants.
- The Toughest Job in the State
Senator Wesley L. Jones defends Prohibition Director Roy C. Lyle against critics, promising severe penalties for any official caught winking at law-breakers.
- The Exclusionary Pledge of La Conner
A frontier town in the Swinomish Flats organizes a formal, collective boycott against Chinese residents, highlighting the intense racial tensions of the 1870s Pacific Northwest.
- City Council Targets 'Disorderly' Tenements
A new ordinance aims to clear out homes deemed a public nuisance based on the 'customs and habits' of residents.
- Lumber Manager Halts Harbor Dumping With Injunction
An injunction suit against jetty contractors highlights the conflict over river dumping in Grays Harbor.
- The Janitor Who Foiled a Ten-Man Jailbreak in Ellensburg
Prisoners had almost tunneled out of the county jail when a janitor sleeping in the sheriff's office heard the scraping—and made a promise they believed.
- A Minister’s Sharp Critique of City Hall’s 'Joinery'
Rev. Wallace Nutting takes the pulpit to call out bureaucratic waste, road-grading failures, and a lack of conscience in police enforcement.