Research the archive
Narrow 25,688 newspaper stories by words, years, place, newspaper and subject. See when and where they ran, then download what you find.
Put a phrase in quotes ("rent strike") or leave a word out with a minus (strike -baseball). Old scans misspell names, so when little is found, near-spellings are offered.
Refine
Show the numbers
| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1872 | 1 |
| 1876 | 2 |
| 1880 | 1 |
| 1883 | 1 |
| 1889 | 1 |
| 1891 | 1 |
| 1892 | 2 |
| 1893 | 1 |
| 1894 | 2 |
| 1895 | 6 |
| 1899 | 1 |
| 1904 | 1 |
| 1911 | 1 |
| 1917 | 1 |
| 1929 | 1 |
23 stories matching devoid
- Troops Take the Yards as Seattle Braces for the Great Railroad Strike
Regular artillery, deputy marshals and a nervous militia dig in across the city — even hauling the state's rifles up to the university for safekeeping — as the 1894 Pullman boycott reaches Puget Sound.
- The Gold Rush That Wasn't: Copper River’s Scurvy Epidemic and the Ghosts of the Valdez Glacier
As Seattleites debated housing and labor, a grim report arrived from the interior: men dying of scurvy in the Copper River country, and the recovered bodies of seven explorers who froze to death on the Valdez glacier.
- The Ghost of William Radloff
A Seattle poultry farmer appears to have staged his own death in a house fire to claim a $55,000 insurance payout, leaving investigators to wonder if the charred remains in the ruins were those of a stolen corpse.
- The Toy-Pistol Jailbreak That Left a Killer at Large
A Seattle editorial seethes over technical delays and comfortable cells after confessed murderer Thomas Blanck walks out of the King County Jail with its keys and revolvers.
- The Tragedy of the McDonald Family
A destitute family in Colfax is dismantled by the courts after years of poverty, illness, and local infamy.
- The Ghost of the Eagle Gorge Landslide
Months after a devastating slide on the Green River, a deputy coroner uncovers the remains of a laborer buried by the earth.
- A Wife's Testimony Was Enough: Supreme Court Reverses Divorce Denial
The Washington Supreme Court ruled that a wife's own account of cruelty and habitual drunkenness could justify a divorce, reversing a lower court that had dismissed Nellie Lee's case.
- “Close Your Gates to Us — But Give Us Independence First”
A Filipino student in Seattle goes before the Labor Union's legislative committee to head off an exclusion bill, and finds the union men surprisingly reasonable — because independence, he argues, gives them exactly what they want anyway.
- The Primary Teacher’s Plea: Why Seattle’s Schools Are Failing Our Children
Miss C.I.T. Parsons delivers a scathing indictment of the King County Teachers' Institute, arguing that cheap buildings and unqualified instructors are robbing Seattle’s youth of their potential.
- The Ten-Hour Day That Split Seattle’s Streetcar Men
A new state law barred Seattle’s streetcar companies from forcing motormen and conductors to work more than ten hours a day. But some workers petitioned to keep the old schedules, because they were paid by the hour.
- The Battle for the Territory: Judson vs. Jacobs in the 1876 Election
As the nation grapples with the disputed presidential election of 1876, Washington Territory voters head to the polls to decide their own future, pitting Republican J.P. Judson against Democrat Judge Jacobs in a fierce contest for territorial supremacy.
- The Parade Ground Is Now a Ward: A Visitor Walks the Territory's Asylum
Where the 4th Infantry once drilled to fife and drum, a correspondent finds sagging fences, two overworked keepers to a men's ward, and a lone matron holding the women's department — all on an appropriation he calls 'a shame to our people.'
- The Coal Miner Who Took the Capitol: Labor's 1911 Push in Olympia
Four hundred union delegates descended on the legislature, and a soft-spoken miner made the case for workmen's compensation — while the federation set its sights on women's eight-hour work and direct legislation.
- The Seattle Editor Who Fought a Mob
After being accused of being a 'blatant traitor' and a secret sympathizer of Lincoln’s assassin, Seattle publisher Beriah Brown strikes back at his political rival.
- The Mystery of the Cedar River Monsters
A fishing expedition into the wilderness turns into a strange, unexplained struggle against an unseen force in the depths of the river.
- The Waterfront Pirates Who Stashed a Household in Tacoma
A Seattle liveryman and a police officer followed a trail of stolen oars and tools to West Passage, where two men had turned a small cottage into a robber's roost.
- A Frontier Editor Tells a Political Rival to Sink His Soul in the Columbia
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reprints a rival editor’s furious attack on Hon. M. W. Miles, a Waterville politician accused of writing to the editor’s ex-wife—and the insults get very personal.
- When the Hay Ran Out, the Neighbours Around Brewster Signed Their Names Together
An Okanogan County fodder famine had stockmen facing the loss of whole herds they had no money to feed — until country people who owed them nothing co-signed a note to buy the hay.
- The Tragedy of the False Gold Rush
An editorial on the human cost of feverish speculation and the empty promises of distant mining 'Eldorados.'
- The 'Pirates' of Hood Canal Were Actually the Men Who Chased the Thieves
A Port Townsend dispatch mistakenly branded two Bangor residents as robbers; they were the ones who caught the real thieves and recovered a boatload of plunder.
- The English Sparrow Has Invaded Seattle — and the Songbirds Are Next
An 1895 editorial warns that the imported sparrow, already a pest in Eastern cities, has reached Puget Sound and will drive out native birds.
- Washington’s Citizen Soldiers Prepare for Duty
While the upcoming National Guard encampment at Chambers Prairie promises camaraderie, it serves a serious, dual purpose: law enforcement and the maintenance of civil stability.
- Kennewick High School Debaters Triumph
Despite a lackluster turnout and a challenging, dry subject, the local team secured a victory in the first state debate series.
Also about this, in other words
- A Seattle Preacher Tells Society Women They Are Marching Their Children to the Gallows
Preaching to women only on "Dying Mothers and Starving Children," Rev. M. A. Matthews calls society "the emptiness of emptiness" — and blames card parties, prizes and maternal neglect for juvenile crime.
- An Abandoned Household: A Public Denunciation in 1876
A rare glimpse into the harsh realities of Victorian domestic life in pioneer Seattle, where a husband took to the local press to publicly cut ties with his wife.
- The Unkindest Cut
A young boy's poignant question about inclusion and dignity sheds light on the treatment of people with disabilities in our community.
- The Empty City: A Housing Crisis Before the Term Existed
In a Seattle where every single available house is spoken for, residents are forced to compete for shelter in a market that defies modern understanding of supply and demand.
- The Empty Crib at the Corner of Third and Union
A quiet, haunting reflection from 1876 Seattle on the enduring grief of losing a child and the keepsakes that remain.
- The Deserted Family of Seattle
A husband is sued for divorce in 1872 on the grounds of cruel neglect and failure to provide for his family.
- The Shadow of Exclusion in Pasco
A town wakes up to find anti-Japanese stickers plastered on storefronts and saloons, fueling local tension.
- 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.