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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 2 |
| 1877 | 1 |
| 1883 | 1 |
| 1889 | 1 |
| 1891 | 1 |
| 1892 | 3 |
| 1893 | 2 |
| 1894 | 2 |
| 1895 | 3 |
| 1897 | 1 |
| 1898 | 1 |
| 1899 | 2 |
| 1902 | 1 |
| 1904 | 1 |
| 1911 | 1 |
| 1914 | 1 |
24 stories matching fabul
- The Great Manastache Mining Hoax
A town's feverish dreams of gold were shattered when a slick assayer fled with their hopes and their money.
- How Tacoma Beat Seattle for the Railroad—and Who Paid for It
An Eastern paper says Northern Pacific officials picked an inferior Tacoma site because it let a small coterie profit from townsite speculation, while Seattle refused to hand over its waterfront.
- The Unfinished Ditch That Could Have Remade Seattle
An 1877 proposal to carve a channel between Lake Washington and the Sound highlights the ambitious—and forgotten—infrastructure dreams that once defined the city’s early development.
- The Spokane 'Monte Cristo' Swindles the City
A charismatic stranger dazzled Spokane with tales of gold and a lavish lifestyle, only to leave town with $10,000 in worthless checks.
- The Ghost City of Ainslie
A grand promise of an industrial metropolis in Lewis County ended in a ruinous collapse for investors and creditors alike.
- A Forged Passage: The Counterfeit Papers That Nearly Smuggled Chinese Immigrants Into Seattle
A ring selling near-perfect imitation government certificates was caught trying to land Chinese immigrants at Tacoma, Seattle and Port Townsend — and the customs collector was not impressed by their craftsmanship.
- The Timber Monopoly Holding Everett Hostage
A fiery editorial calls out the Puget Mill Company for hoarding vast tracts of land and artificially inflating timber prices while ignoring the welfare of the local community.
- Harrington & Smith Secure Waterfront Legacy
A landmark property transfer on Commercial Street marks the largest private real estate sale in the Territory's history.
- The Town Where Horses Wore Wooden Shoes
La Conner grew slowly on a rocky knoll in the Skagit delta, diked its tidal flats, and shipped out hay by the ton—while its horses clumped through spring mud in wooden moccasins.
- Stranded in Seattle by Fake Alaska Jobs
Two hundred men were swindled by a fake construction company, leaving them stranded without pay or prospects.
- Five Years of Waiting: The Silver Rush That Never Was
Spokane’s mining elite face a bureaucratic delay that threatens to stall fortunes built on the promise of the Spokane Indian Reservation's mineral wealth.
- The Price of Municipal Ownership in Kent
Citizens of Kent are left with a mounting debt and a white elephant after a failed attempt to run their own utilities.
- The Wires That Grew With Seattle
How the Sunset Telephone and Telegraph Company rode Seattle from a forest village to a 25,000-person city — and, when the Great Fire of 1889 burned its plant out of existence, rebuilt the service in tents within ten days.
- The Mystery of the Lost Tent Mine
Twenty-two years after a rich gold strike in the Cascades, a party of prospectors still hunts for their abandoned fortune.
- The State's Empire: A Plan for Washington’s School Fund
Tax Commissioner T. E. Skaggs argues for the careful conservation of state land assets to generate a massive, self-sustaining educational endowment.
- An Overqualified Bookkeeper Answers a $3-a-Week Ad
A desperate job-seeker responds to a measly $3-a-week bookkeeping ad with a resume that includes everything from peanut roasting to dog-ear clipping.
- Seattle Bookkeeper Ad Draws One Absurdly Overqualified Applicant
A desperate job seeker responds to a meager help-wanted ad with a resume that puts modern multitasking to shame.
- The Boom's Bill Comes Due: Chehalis County Taxpayers Foot the Cost
An Aberdeen editor tallies a quarter-million-dollar tax burden and blames real-estate speculators who promoted 'fool improvements' during the boom, then slipped out of paying.
- The Pig That Pays the Bills: How Swine Became Puget Sound’s Secret Wealth
In 1876, while Seattle looked to timber and fish for its future, a local article argued that raising hogs on wheat stubble was the most reliable path to prosperity.
- A Dead Explorer's Lantern Slides: Alaska Comes to the Seattle Theater
J. O. Hestwood recounts the Yukon route, the Grand Canyon rapids and the cost of the northern gold fields, illustrating the journey of the late explorer Wilson with views projected on the screen.
- The Water Belongs to the People—Not the Syndicates
A.M. Stevens of Ellensburg warns that handing arid lands to the states is the first step toward private control—and argues the federal government must build the reservoirs.
- Livestock for the Klondike Gold Rush
As miners flood the Yukon, entrepreneurs are shipping live cattle and sheep north to feed the boomtowns.
- The Great Hop Hype
Local dealers spar with growers over inflated rumors of global demand for Washington's prized crop.
- The Great Egg Exodus: Why One Seattle Boarding House Keeper is Trading City Squalor for Fidalgo Island Farming
In a move that defies the city's booming real estate speculation, Mrs. Johnson abandons her Commercial Street boarding house to launch a poultry empire on Fidalgo Island, proving that sometimes the best investment is a flock of chickens.