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169 stories matching eighti
- 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.
- Deadlock in Olympia: Allen Four Votes Short as Legislators Flee
The Washington state legislature remains gridlocked over the election of a U.S. Senator, with Senator Allen stuck at 41 votes and political maneuvering turning farcical.
- The Legislators Who Came to See a Ditch—and Left Believers
A steamboat tour of Smith Cove and Lake Union turns Eastern Washington lawmakers into ship-canal converts.
- The Aftermath of the Roslyn Mine Explosion
A town mourns forty-five dead while the community rallies to support eighty-four orphaned children.
- The Shipworm Eating Seattle’s Waterfront
Wharf owners were spending a fortune fighting a saltwater pest. The fix: fill the tide flats, cut freshwater waterways, and make the harbor safe for pilings—and insurance.
- A Majority of 108 from Seventy Voters
The territorial election returns smelled of the ballot box: Whatcom County, with barely eighty voters, reported a majority of 108 for Stevens.
- The Seattle Planing Mill's Radical Experiment
When their employer went bust, eighty factory workers in Seattle did the unthinkable: they organized a co-operative, took over the plant, and kept the machines humming.
- Seattle’s Yesler Donation Claim Goes on the Auction Block
An administrator petitions to carve 86 lots out of Sarah B. Yesler’s donation claim to settle an estate drowning in debt and taxes.
- Seattle's Bid to Be the Liverpool of America
In 1895, boosters imagined a Lake Washington ship canal turning Puget Sound into a freshwater harbor for world commerce, coal trade, and naval power.
- The U.S. Senate Seat That Stalled Olympia
With Republicans split over Wilson and Ankeny, Pierce County played a double game and the governor's message shoved the Senate election to the back of the room.
- The Great Northern’s Secret March: How Seattle Won the Rail War
While Tacoma watches in disbelief, eighty miles of steel rails and bridge materials are already en route to Seattle, signaling that James J. Hill’s new railroad will make the city its headquarters.
- The Half-Million Dollar Land War
After decades of legal battles involving divorce, disputed donation claims, and multiple claimants, a massive 80-acre swath of Seattle real estate finally changes hands.
- Eighty-Five Portland Boosters Take Kennewick by Storm
A trade excursion rolls into town for four hours of speeches, store visits, and open-river boosterism — with the mayor, the railroads, and a 'cocktail' cherry orchard all in on the fun.
- The 83-Ballot Deadlock: 'Either Allen or No One'
In Olympia, John B. Allen’s Republican caucus held the line while Judge Humes and Levi Ankeny saw their candidacies frostbitten—and the ballots kept piling up.
- 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 Industrial Boom of Van Asselt's Sewer Pipe
A newly discovered deposit of clay near the Green River births a factory, employing eighty men and shaping the city’s infrastructure.
- A Seattle Pioneer Turns 84, With Four Generations at Her Table
Mrs. Janice Biles, whose family crossed the Cascades by wagon train in 1852, celebrated her eighty-fourth birthday surrounded by children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
- The Ghost of the Seattle Enterprise: Stockholders Escape a Dead Newspaper's Debts
A receiver's long-running suit against 85 subscribers to the failed Seattle Enterprise collapses in court, but not before the paper's brief, fiery life is recalled — complete with a building-bulging press and a strike by its own printers.
- The Nervous Trunk: How an Inspector's Hunch Caught a Seattle Opium Smuggler
A traveler's strange devotion to his luggage tipped off a customs officer, leading to eighty tins of prepared opium and a suspect who begged to be 'let down easy.'
- Seattle Laid Out Its Streets for 7,000 People. It Was Already Too Small.
In 1883, Seattle citizens worried that the young city's twenty-foot business streets could not carry the growth already under way, and a movement began to widen them to eighty feet.
- A Final Reunion for Northwest Pioneers
After eighty years apart, the remains of missionary William H. Gray and his wife are reinterred alongside the Whitmans in Walla Walla.
- The Bureau of Associated Charities Launches Friendly Visitors Program
Eighty local women take up the task of 'personal charity,' aiming to uplift the poor through mentorship rather than simple handouts.
- Eighty Couples and a Brass Band: Aberdeen's Firemen Throw a Third-Anniversary Dance
The volunteer department celebrates three years with a free dance at Koehler's hall, drawing guests from across Grays Harbor.
- Two Explosions on the Great Northern Grade Killed a Powder Driver
A load of dynamite tumbled into the upper Wenatchee River; days later, 100 kegs of black powder went up and Swan Johnson was blown eighty feet.
- Funding the University
Legislators move to secure $6,000 in funding for the Territorial University, framing the institution as vital to the future of all Washington youth.
Also about this, in other words
- The Eight-Hour Day as a Moral Mandate
A fiery editorial argues that the eight-hour movement is the most significant moral and social reform of the age, transcending the 'superior intelligence' of lawyers and editors.