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 |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 1 |
| 1858 | 1 |
| 1859 | 4 |
| 1860 | 2 |
| 1861 | 5 |
| 1863 | 1 |
| 1864 | 1 |
| 1872 | 6 |
| 1876 | 47 |
| 1877 | 27 |
| 1878 | 16 |
| 1879 | 2 |
| 1880 | 7 |
| 1882 | 3 |
| 1883 | 27 |
| 1884 | 14 |
| 1885 | 21 |
| 1886 | 13 |
| 1887 | 24 |
| 1888 | 12 |
| 1889 | 54 |
| 1890 | 6 |
| 1891 | 44 |
| 1892 | 64 |
| 1893 | 65 |
| 1894 | 90 |
| 1895 | 118 |
| 1896 | 1 |
| 1897 | 3 |
| 1898 | 12 |
| 1899 | 18 |
| 1900 | 3 |
| 1902 | 3 |
| 1903 | 35 |
| 1904 | 24 |
| 1905 | 4 |
| 1907 | 1 |
| 1908 | 12 |
| 1909 | 37 |
| 1910 | 7 |
| 1911 | 1 |
| 1914 | 6 |
| 1915 | 11 |
| 1916 | 26 |
| 1917 | 6 |
| 1918 | 4 |
| 1923 | 2 |
| 1924 | 3 |
| 1928 | 2 |
| 1929 | 1 |
897 stories matching either
- The Ship That Smuggled Opium: How a Legal Loophole Freed a Vessel and $13,000 in Penalties
Judge Hanford rules that the steamer *Walla Walla* is not liable for contraband found in its cargo because the master lacked knowledge of the smuggling, setting a precedent for common carriers.
- The Warden Fights Back: Prison Labor, Jute Sacks and a Seattle Newspaper Scandal
Accused of selling prison-made sacks to middlemen and brutalizing convicts, Walla Walla’s warden answers his critics with a detailed defense—and a challenge to inspect the prison.
- The Fire Chief Who Ran for the Border
A telegram from British Columbia, a contested resignation, and a letter to the editor expose the perjury and naturalization fraud case that consumed Seattle City Hall.
- 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 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.
- The Canal That Would Reshape Seattle, Held Up by Mud and Paperwork
In 1895 the government's Lake Washington ship canal was still a paper route, and every submerged lot owner had to sign away damages before a dredge could move.
- Seattle’s 1891 Election-Eve Alarm: ‘Watch Until the Vote Is Counted’
On the eve of municipal elections, the Post-Intelligencer accuses the Democratic administration of protected gambling, a looted treasury and stacked election boards—and warns Republicans that the only danger left is the count.
- A Valley Drowns Every Spring—and One Farmer Wants a Better Dike
A correspondent warns that the Pend Oreille freshet has wrecked $50,000 worth of Calispel Valley crops—and argues the proposed diking districts are too piecemeal to save the basin.
- The Oregon Railway & Navigation Company’s Seattle Bottleneck
Caught between a local captain’s limited authority and a slow-moving corporate bureaucracy in New York, the steamboat company faces a potential collapse of its Puget Sound trade.
- Keep Your Money at Home? In Kennewick, the Shoe-Leather Trail Led to Pasco
A letter to the editor takes aim at buy-local boosterism, arguing that Kennewick shoppers already knew the real prices—and often crossed the river to Pasco or sent away for mail-order catalogs.
- How an old mining ditch and a boulder patch became a $6,000 orchard
A correspondent's tour of the Methow valley and the benches above Pateros finds peaches by the boxcar, seven-pound carrots, and a warning that California land had already outrun the poor man.
- The Day Burrard Inlet Rowed Away With Lake Washington
At the first amateur regatta ever held on Lake Washington, British Columbia crews dominated the junior fours and senior singles while Seattle prepared for its turn on the water.
- The Unsettled Nation: Seattle Watches the 1876 Election Crisis
While the nation held its breath over a deadlocked presidential contest, Seattle locals turned their eyes toward the local ballot, formalizing the region's nascent civic infrastructure.
- The Wharf King’s Victory: Yesler Wins Millions in Land Battle
Judge Lichtenberg rules that the state cannot seize waterfront property without paying just compensation, halting the Harbor Line Commission and protecting H.L. Yesler’s empire.
- 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.
- The Quarantine Lie: How Providence Hospital’s Smallpox Cover-Up Sparked a Public Health Crisis
A desperate letter from hospital staff reveals that patients were turned away or allowed to leave while infected with smallpox, leading to a chaotic quarantine and widespread community fear in early 1903 Seattle.
- The Mayor Fires Two Police Commissioners to Keep Blackchapel Shut
In a single day, Mayor Phelps removed two police commissioners, accused them of conspiring to protect a red-light district and oust Chief Rogers, and installed replacements before the House of Delegates could slow him down.
- Seattle's Fire Chief Vanished Before His Day in Court
A.B. Hunt disappeared after telling friends he was off to Tacoma for trial; the city removed him, named Alexander Allen Jr. chief, and left a mystery that only deepened when his father was summoned to prove his birth.
- Seattle's 1895 Warning: Secure Cedar River Water Before Private Speculators Do
City Engineer R. H. Thomson says Seattle's overworked pumps cannot survive another summer and urges the city to buy the Cedar River watershed, dams and reservoir sites while it still can.
- The Tacoma Gold Rush That Was Salted With Quicksilver
A mining journal exposes how placer claims on Tacoma school land turned a public trust into a speculative jackpot—complete with imported gold, alleged bribery, and a land office that kept saying yes.
- The Axe That Struck the Root of Corporate Greed
A landmark 1885 federal land order threatens to forfeit the Northern Pacific Railroad's vast land grants for failing to meet its building requirements.
- A House of Prayer for All the Nations
In 1892, Seattle's Congregation Ohaveth Sholom dedicated the first Jewish synagogue in Washington, filling the new sanctuary at Seventh and Seneca with Jews and Gentiles and with sermons that insisted the building must be more than stone and gold.
- The Body in the Box: A Political Murder Haunts Spokane County
Charles F. Gloystein crossed the Freeman's Protective Silver Federation and disappeared. Now his neighbors are offering a $1,000 reward—not for a killer, but for the body.
- The Day Seattle Shut Down: Sailors, Longshoremen and the First Labor Day
Banks, courts and public offices closed for the first time in the city's history, 2,500 people packed Pioneer Place for a 36-minute tug-of-war, and a labor orator told the crowd that good wages are the engine of everyone's prosperity.
- The Jailhouse Serenade: Seattle’s Most Popular Prisoner Refuses Bail
Val Wildman, proprietor of the 'Vanity Fair' lottery, sits in King County Jail refusing to pay his fine. When friends and influential citizens gather outside to raise the money for his release, he turns them away—insisting his imprisonment is a matter of principle.
Also about this, in other words
- The Unilateral Disclaimer of a 19th-Century Marriage
Publicly declaring he would no longer be responsible for his wife's debts, Thomas Lilly placed this notice in the newspaper to formally signal a separation in pioneer Seattle.
- The Ultimatum: Lager or Love
A Snohomish woman forces a choice between the bottle and the altar.
- A Frontier Promise Kept
In an era of rugged isolation, an anonymous immigrant couple reflects on twenty years of marriage, the silence of their home, and the sudden joy of a child arriving on Christmas Day.
- The Clerk’s Odd Sales Pitch
A farmer learns a strange and aggressive new way to test if his wife is 'sound' while shopping in 1877 Seattle.
- The Realities of a Frontier Childhood
A playful rivalry between two young boys in Elma takes a gruesome turn, highlighting the rough-and-tumble nature of early Chehalis County life.
- A Belligerent Patient at the Steilacoom Asylum
- The Reverend and the Editor Spar Over Grammar
A local minister demands public corrections for his column, leading to a feisty rebuttal from the newspaper's editorial staff.
- A Brutal Encounter at the Waterfront
A Seattle harbor dispute spirals into a violent assault, leaving a man fighting for his life.