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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 2 |
| 1858 | 1 |
| 1859 | 3 |
| 1861 | 2 |
| 1862 | 3 |
| 1863 | 3 |
| 1872 | 11 |
| 1876 | 38 |
| 1877 | 39 |
| 1878 | 12 |
| 1879 | 3 |
| 1880 | 8 |
| 1882 | 5 |
| 1883 | 37 |
| 1884 | 18 |
| 1885 | 58 |
| 1886 | 26 |
| 1887 | 31 |
| 1888 | 24 |
| 1889 | 64 |
| 1890 | 16 |
| 1891 | 42 |
| 1892 | 182 |
| 1893 | 163 |
| 1894 | 133 |
| 1895 | 26 |
| 1897 | 1 |
| 1898 | 7 |
| 1899 | 44 |
| 1900 | 2 |
| 1903 | 73 |
| 1904 | 52 |
| 1905 | 2 |
| 1908 | 1 |
| 1909 | 44 |
| 1910 | 4 |
| 1911 | 3 |
| 1912 | 4 |
| 1914 | 8 |
| 1915 | 13 |
| 1916 | 19 |
| 1917 | 16 |
| 1922 | 1 |
| 1923 | 6 |
| 1924 | 6 |
| 1925 | 2 |
1,258 stories matching die
- ‘You Are Hanging an Innocent Man’: A Condemned Killer’s Last Words Before 4,000 Witnesses
Ezra Snoderly, one of the Cummins murderers, is hanged in Dayton’s courthouse square — insisting to the very end that he dies for another man’s crime, while the crowd judges him ‘game.’
- The Missing Will That Would Have Given Seattle a Library
Henry Yesler's widow and two doctors are arrested, accused of burning a will that left the pioneer's fortune—and his mansion—to the city.
- The Ghostly Note of Joe Davis
After his wife’s death in Oregon, a man jailed in Seattle took his own life in his prison cell, leaving behind a haunting, misspelled confession that claimed they had died for each other.
- The Tragedy of the State Asylum
A grim tally of patient deaths at the Washington State asylum sparks questions about the treatment of vulnerable populations committed from King County.
- Thirty-Seven Miners Died 150 Feet From Safety
An 1894 coroner's jury in Franklin, Washington, heard how a small fire in the Oregon Improvement Company's coal mine became a wall of smoke — and why the men who could have escaped stayed to fight it.
- A Tragic Death in the Shadow of the Jail
A young bride, ostracized by society, dies of grief while her husband awaits extradition from the county jail.
- The Orphan’s Plea: A Poem That Moved Seattle to Tears on Decoration Day
As the city honored Civil War dead with solemn processions and speeches, a young girl’s grief over her father’s unmarked grave brought the Grand Marshal to tears.
- The Match That Killed: A Seattle Woman’s Desperate End
Maggie Borchers, 30, died in agony after ingesting sulfur matches because her family had locked away all other means of suicide.
- The Girl Who Vanished: A Seattle Mystery of Despair and Deceit
In June 1903, a young woman died under mysterious circumstances near Yesler Way, leaving behind only a few dollars and a card from a Pike Street lodging house. Was she an orphan in distress, or a fraud hiding her past?
- Seattle’s Japanese Neighbors Answer the Call of War
In August 1894, Japanese residents packed a Jefferson Street hall to send money, flour and volunteers to the First Sino-Japanese War—while Chinese Seattleites predicted Japan’s defeat.
- The Tragic Death of James Riley: A Local Defense Against 'Ill-Treatment' Claims
After a man recently sent from Snohomish to the Territorial Asylum died suddenly in Steilacoom, local papers rushed to defend their community's actions against accusations of negligence.
- The Brutal Doctrine of 'Root Hog or Die'
A Seattle newspaper editorial argues for the forced assimilation and dispossession of Indigenous people, mirroring the era's harshest colonial policies.
- Telescoped at the Crossing: A Grant Street Horror
When a Northern Pacific freight train plowed into an electric streetcar on May 20, 1909, one man died and dozens were mangled in the icy water below. The crash exposed dangerous speeds and negligent watchmen at a city intersection that remains vital today.
- The Dug-Eaters of the Yukon: A Philadelphia Man’s Starvation Story
H.C. Reifsnyder arrives in Seattle with a harrowing tale of survival on the Edmonton Trail, where his party subsisted on dog meat and dugouts after losing their provisions to the brutal wilderness.
- An Indigenous Woman Left to Die at Seattle’s Mechanic Wharf
When five Indigenous people were rescued from a capsized canoe in Seattle’s harbor, a local resident threw one woman into the mud and left her to die.
- The Marshal’s Club: A Vagrant’s Death on the Falmouth Harbor
When a Whatcom city marshal struck a drunk vagrant with his billy club, the man died. Now, a furious letter found under the body demands justice in Seattle.
- The Tragedy of a Ballard Shack
A destitute family in Ballard faces the loss of multiple children and a dying mother, revealing the harsh reality of poverty on the city's outskirts.
- A Desperate Leap at Commercial Wharf
After an unemployed teamster jumped into the water, a crowd on the wharf pooled their money to help him, despite authorities questioning his sanity.
- A Brother's Bullet: Deputy Marshal Dies, and the Accused Killer Asks Only for a Match
Shot by his own brother at Pioneer Place and James Street, Deputy U.S. Marshal Edward Minsch lingers a day and dies at Providence Hospital — while Frank Minsch, cool and indifferent in the city jail, shows no grief and admits only that he is 'subject to epileptic fits.'
- A Final Insult for a Fallen Engineer
After an Everett railroad engineer died in a tragic mountain fall, his employers refused to pay for his transport, offering only a boxcar for the journey home.
- The General Who Laid Out Tacoma
Maj. Gen. John W. Sprague—Northern Pacific superintendent, Tacoma's first mayor and a founder of its bank and chamber—died at 74, leaving a city he helped place on the map.
- The Chief’s Last Stand: A Vision of Justice Beyond the Grave
In a rare and poignant interview, Spotted Tail articulates a theology of retribution where the Great Spirit favors the Native American over the white settler in the afterlife.
- The Father of Walla Walla's Nurseries Dies
Philip Kite, the territorial delegate who helped bring the Northern Pacific Railroad to the Northwest and built a massive horticultural empire, has died at age 81.
- A Seattle Hotel Death, a Body Exhumed, and a Family’s Slander Suit
Miss Witnail died suddenly after the Pollocks brought her west; when an Iowa coroner found childbirth, accusations and lawsuits followed.
- The Pioneer Who Built Port Townsend's First Wharf
Captain Enoch S. Fowler, a Maine-born mariner turned merchant and officeholder, dies at 63, leaving a town shaped by his ships, wharves, and stone buildings.
Also about this, in other words
- Death the Price of a Job
A brutal internal railroad memo reveals that safety rules were meant for legal protection, while speed was the only metric that mattered for keeping a job.
- A Child's Fatal Accident Near Palouse
A twelve-year-old boy is killed instantly after falling from a wagon.
- A Child's Final Act of Mercy
A nine-year-old boy, dying from a pen-knife stab wound inflicted by a playmate, spends his final moments begging police to let his assailant go free.
- A Sudden End in the Aberdeen Ballroom
A prominent local businessman collapses and dies while dancing.
- The Tragic End of a Forgotten Life
A young, disabled woman dies in Seattle after surviving a life of exploitation at the hands of 'charitable' organizations.
- A Marriage Cut Short by Tragedy
A young bride dies suddenly on her second wedding anniversary, triggering a callous rumor mill that the press quickly works to correct.
- A Tragic Burial at Sea
While working the lumber trade, a crew member falls from the rigging to his death, leaving his comrades to mourn him in the middle of the Pacific.
- A Fatal Tiller Blow on the Sound
A pioneer fisherman faces manslaughter charges after a tragic, unintended killing of a close friend.