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 | 4 |
| 1858 | 2 |
| 1859 | 7 |
| 1860 | 1 |
| 1861 | 6 |
| 1862 | 11 |
| 1863 | 2 |
| 1864 | 3 |
| 1865 | 2 |
| 1872 | 21 |
| 1876 | 82 |
| 1877 | 88 |
| 1878 | 37 |
| 1879 | 6 |
| 1880 | 19 |
| 1882 | 9 |
| 1883 | 63 |
| 1884 | 37 |
| 1885 | 66 |
| 1886 | 38 |
| 1887 | 39 |
| 1888 | 73 |
| 1889 | 153 |
| 1890 | 13 |
| 1891 | 131 |
| 1892 | 209 |
| 1893 | 178 |
| 1894 | 256 |
| 1895 | 326 |
| 1896 | 1 |
| 1897 | 16 |
| 1898 | 40 |
| 1899 | 62 |
| 1900 | 4 |
| 1902 | 7 |
| 1903 | 92 |
| 1904 | 90 |
| 1905 | 12 |
| 1907 | 6 |
| 1908 | 29 |
| 1909 | 92 |
| 1910 | 16 |
| 1911 | 8 |
| 1912 | 5 |
| 1914 | 25 |
| 1915 | 28 |
| 1916 | 39 |
| 1917 | 18 |
| 1918 | 1 |
| 1919 | 1 |
| 1923 | 10 |
| 1924 | 2 |
| 1925 | 5 |
| 1928 | 4 |
| 1929 | 3 |
2,498 stories matching fact
- The Filipino Answer to a Labor Organizer’s Exclusion Demand
In 1929, Seattle’s Filipino Forum took on the Central Labor Council’s campaign to bar Filipino workers—and dismantled the racist case line by line.
- Two Dollars a Head: Seattle's Labor Commissioner Takes On the Employment Agencies
Charged with running the city's free employment office as a union errand boy, Commissioner John Lamb answers that the private agencies have been selling men jobs that do not exist.
- The Delegate Who Sold Seattle’s Future for Five Thousand Dollars
A scathing editorial in the Puget Sound Dispatch accuses Territorial Delegate George Freeman Willard of betraying Seattle’s interests—specifically the mud flats of Duwamish Bay—to secure his own political and financial gain, while simultaneously accepting bribes from rival railroad companies.
- The Judge Who Was Both Defendant and Accused
In a stunning legal double-header, Judge Wickersham is convicted of seduction in one court, then immediately indicted for perjury by the federal grand jury in the very same day.
- A Wife's Testimony Was Enough: Supreme Court Reverses Divorce Denial
The Washington Supreme Court ruled that a wife's own account of cruelty and habitual drunkenness could justify a divorce, reversing a lower court that had dismissed Nellie Lee's case.
- The Pastor, the Circular, and the Hung Jury
For three days a Seattle courtroom heard accusations of adultery, an illegitimate son, and a pastor’s libelous circular. At 12:35 a.m., the jury was still deadlocked.
- The Lease a Husband Had No Right to Sign
A Tacoma mercantile firm stopped paying $500-a-month rent, arguing the leased property was community property and the wives had never signed. Washington’s Supreme Court said the lease was not absolutely void—but the tenants had rights too.
- A Dead Man’s Name on the Payroll
A Walla Walla ex-employee files twenty charges against L. T. Erwin, accusing the Yakima Indian agent of fraud, perjury, and turning the agency into a private larder.
- 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 County Attorney Wrote His Own Case—and a Commissioner Objected
Commissioner Peter Autzen accused two colleagues of signing a self-serving statement in a tax-fee dispute, exposing a conflict at the heart of Chehalis County government.
- The Prosecutor Who Prosecuted Himself: How Aberdeen’s DA Ignored a White Mob’s Attack on Chinese Residents
When a mob drove Aberdeen’s Chinese community out of town and stole $550, the county’s prosecuting attorney charged the victims with libel instead of the perpetrators—sparking a furious editorial defense of civil rights in 1890.
- 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.
- Two Hundred Lives, One Closed Door: The Pacific Inquiry
Witnesses swore in Port Townsend that the steamer Pacific was rotten when she sailed. Now the very inspectors who certified her seaworthy are investigating her loss — in secret.
- 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 Iron Giant Lands: Moss Bay Steel Chooses Seattle Without Asking for a Penny
In a stunning victory for civic pride over corporate bribery, the massive Moss Bay Iron and Steel Company has selected Lake Washington as its site, rejecting lucrative bonuses from rival cities and the Northern Pacific Railroad.
- The Great Political Tickling: How Daniel Bugley Outwitted Seattle’s Beriah Brown
A fiery editorial in the *Snohomish Sun* exposes a political alliance between two rival editors, accusing them of using religious fervor as a cover for partisan maneuvering.
- The Elopement That Seattle Couldn't Stop Watching
A music teacher and his married pupil vanish East, a husband follows, and a father-in-law claims the whole thing was a plot to win a divorce—while the young wife says she still believes her husband.
- The Paperwork of Exclusion: Chinese Residents Ordered to Register
New federal rules land in Seattle requiring every Chinese resident to carry a photographic certificate of residence, sworn affidavits and a detailed physical description — the machinery of the Geary Act takes shape.
- Columbia River Strawberry Growers Compete Against Themselves
In 1914, Kennewick farmers were losing profits not to outside competitors, but to their own self-defeating price-cutting tactics.
- The City Can Tear It Down: The Supreme Court Backs Seattle's Fire Limits
Daniel K. Baxter put up a twenty-foot shell of wooden posts wrapped in corrugated iron inside Seattle's fire limits. The state Supreme Court said the city could knock it down without ever going to court — and municipal building codes came out of it stronger than before.
- A Creameryman Confesses: 'Our Business Conditions Are Rotten'
In an unusually candid letter to The Ranch, the manager of the Rockwood Creamery Co. says reckless price-cutting and smooth-talking rivals are cheating Washington dairy farmers and quietly ruining the state's butter.
- The Wig and the Wire: How a Tacoma Newspaper Owner Tried to Destroy a Judge
In the sensational Wickersham trial of 1889, prosecutor R.P. Radebaugh’s own past and his alleged conspiracy to frame Judge Wickersham for 'immorality' were laid bare in court.
- Knockout Drops at the Standard Saloon
A Tacoma man swears he was drugged, fleeced of $210, and knocked toothless—then asks the city to revoke the saloon's license.
- Tacoma's Two-Million-Dollar Question: Buy the Water Works, or Fix the Sewers?
On the eve of a bond vote, Tacoma's taxpayers are told they can have the private water and electric plant and new sewers too. The arithmetic says otherwise: after the purchase, $3,707 is left for sewers.
- The Alderman, the Streetcar Man, and the Offer to 'Make It All Right'
Alderman J. Eugene Jordan answers a St. Louis letter from street-railway manager E. F. Wittler, denying personal spite while insisting that an investigation will expose who tried to buy a vote on the car lines.
Also about this, in other words
- The Great Smokestack Hoax: Seattle’s Mountain Top Mystery
In 1873, local entrepreneur S. W. Peck convinced the city that a legendary 'living rod' lay buried atop American Flat. His desperate drilling operation reveals more about the era's speculative fever than geological truth.
- The Fake News That Spooked a Construction Site
A sensationalized newspaper report of a lynching on a remote railroad line triggered a labor shortage that crippled local work.
- The Cold Truth at City Hall
A winter coal shortage brings a parade of desperate applicants to a city official who doles out fuel with a mix of bureaucratic cruelty and casual dismissals.
- Darwin, Agassiz, and the Snohomish Pulpit Wars
A fiery editorial from 1877 Snohomish takes on the local clergy for their public ridicule of scientific discovery and the theory of evolution.
- The Price of Falsehood in the Anti-Chinese Movement
As tensions boiled over in 1886, a Seattle newspaper called out local rabble-rousers for using blatant lies to incite hostility against Chinese residents.
- The True Cost of a Store Tab in 1872 Seattle
A young couple's struggle with 'monthly accounts' reveals how merchant credit traps were the predatory debt cycles of the 19th century.
- The Price of Industrial Growth
A scathing critique of Teddy Roosevelt's 'Homes Commission' report reveals the deadly reality behind the era's industrial boom.
- False Leprosy Rumors in Chinatown
A local rival paper attempted to stir up panic in North Yakima's Chinese quarter, but the local Marshal found the reports to be entirely fabricated.