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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 3 |
| 1877 | 4 |
| 1878 | 2 |
| 1882 | 1 |
| 1883 | 5 |
| 1884 | 4 |
| 1885 | 2 |
| 1886 | 2 |
| 1887 | 2 |
| 1888 | 4 |
| 1889 | 11 |
| 1890 | 1 |
| 1891 | 5 |
| 1892 | 7 |
| 1893 | 7 |
| 1894 | 8 |
| 1895 | 29 |
| 1898 | 2 |
| 1899 | 1 |
| 1903 | 2 |
| 1904 | 8 |
| 1908 | 4 |
| 1909 | 6 |
| 1910 | 3 |
| 1914 | 2 |
| 1915 | 1 |
| 1916 | 2 |
| 1923 | 2 |
| 1924 | 2 |
132 stories matching excav
- A Child’s Fall into a City Excavation
A young girl’s tumble into a construction pit sparks a damages lawsuit against an investment firm.
- Blasting Beneath 14th and A
Contractor C.D. Elmore is drilling into cement gravel to carve out a new foundation for a downtown landmark.
- The Tragic End of a Seattle Roadwork Accident
A laborer was severely injured when a massive boulder crushed him during excavations at Van Duzen’s Addition.
- Contractor Arrested for Unpermitted Street Work
A Tacoma contractor faces legal trouble for unauthorized excavation in his neighborhood.
- The Blue Sand Beneath Seattle
In September 1876, a crew of Chinese laborers excavating the foundation for a new building at Wellington and Third struck a rare geological treasure: a bed of pure blue sand.
- The Gold Rush Under Your Feet
A sewer excavation in a fashionable Spokane district unearths gold-bearing ore worth $2,000 a ton.
- Ancient Remains Unearthed Near Pullman
A gravel pit excavation on the Moscow-Pullman road has revealed the skeletal remains and tools of an Indigenous person, sparking local efforts to preserve the site's history.
- Gold Under the Lawns: A Sewer Dig Strikes It Rich in Spokane
City workmen excavating a sewer in a fashionable Spokane neighborhood turn up ore assaying over $2,000 a ton — and neighbors start talking about sinking shafts in their front yards.
- Prehistoric Tooth Found Near Clarkston
Work crews excavating a pipeline near Clarkston stumble upon a six-pound mammoth tooth buried in the earth.
- City Orders Halt to Blasting Near West Coast Wagon Factory
A contractor’s use of dynamite to excavate an addition to the West Coast wagon factory triggered alarm and complaints of structural damage from neighbors.
- The Unwelcome Discovery at the Foundry
While excavating for a new skeleton for the foundry, workmen unearthed a human skull and long bones, a grim reminder of history beneath Seattle's industrial soil.
- The Railroad Cut Through His Property; He Wants $10,000
Philip Nagle sued the Idaho & Washington Northern, claiming a new track and excavation isolated his Newport land and ignored his property rights.
- The Sewer Under Beacon Hill
After quicksand, floods and a costly detour, Seattle’s South Tunnel is weeks from completion—and somehow still inside its $100,000 budget.
- Building a Seawall to Save the Waterfront
A proposal to use excavated earth from new construction to extend the city's harbor, protecting the waterfront while expanding valuable land.
- The Tragic Collapse at the Hardware Store
A routine day at a Seattle business turned into a scene of horror when a deep, shifting excavation buried a worker alive.
- Digging the Portage Canal
A progress report on the ambitious project to connect Lake Washington and Lake Union by a man-made waterway.
- The Machine That Would Make Land: Dredging of the Tide Flats Begins
Surveyors break ground this morning on the bulkhead along Railroad Avenue, the first step in the Seattle and Lake Washington Waterway Company's scheme to fill the tide flats and carve an east waterway.
- A Rough Welcome to Spokane Falls
A pioneer photographer's arrival in the city ends in a painful accident after his wagon hits an excavation.
- Seattle Rising: The Blocks Going Up Where the Fire Burned
Dexter Horton & Co. reopens on the same corner it held before the great fire, as new brick blocks, houses and excavations push out across the young city.
- The Peril of the Open Sewer
A pedestrian’s fall into an unlit excavation leads to a three-way courtroom battle between the injured man, the city, and a railway company.
- The Fight Over Walla Walla's Subterranean Waters
A legal assessment regarding the city's rights to the Thomas Springs sheds light on early municipal water struggles.
- Tragedy in the Spokane Excavations
A laborer is killed and his foreman injured after a delayed dynamite blast detonates during construction work on First Avenue.
- The Grand Plan to Reshape Seattle
A St. Louis investment group arrives to back Eugene Semple’s ambitious vision of a ship canal and the filling of the tide flats.
- Injured Miner Sues for $24,300
A 21-year-old worker paralyzed in a mine cave-in takes the Seattle Coal and Iron Company to court.
- The Dredge That Would Carve Seattle's Ship Canal
In 1895, Eugene Semple's Seattle & Lake Washington Waterway Company signed the largest dredging contract ever awarded in America — 35 million cubic yards of tide-flat muck, at 18 cents a yard, to cut a canal from Puget Sound to Lake Washington.