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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1877 | 1 |
| 1882 | 1 |
| 1883 | 1 |
| 1889 | 2 |
| 1892 | 4 |
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19 stories matching grid
- Farmers Organize Against Seattle and Tacoma Power Monopolies
The Western Progressive Farmers group pushes for a state-wide 'superpower' initiative, breaking with municipal interests over grid control.
- Building a Street over the Tidelands
A new ordinance pushes the city street grid out over the Seattle waterfront to reach the dry dock.
- Seattle’s Early Debate Over Public Power
The Chamber of Commerce considers whether the city should break from private monopoly and run its own electric grid.
- The Power Consolidation
A multi-state syndicate acquires the light and power plants of Walla Walla and Pendleton, marking a shift toward centralized, eastern-controlled infrastructure.
- The Bid to Bottle Up Tacoma
A proposed electrical franchise sparked a bitter fight between City Hall and a powerful private utility corporation over the future of the city's power grid.
- The City Moves Dirt: Tacoma’s Infrastructure Expansion
Crews begin work on a significant new sluicing line to clear debris from the U.P. tunnel, doubling down on civil works to connect the city grid.
- Blood and Grids: Seattle and Tacoma's Football Rivalry
After a bruising match in Tacoma, Seattle prepares for a Thanksgiving Day rematch as local pride fuels the nascent football culture.
- After the Great Fire of 1889: Rebuilding a City from the Ashes
While Seattle recovers from a devastating conflagration, a citywide debate pits public safety and urban planning against private interests over the future layout of the business district.
- The Day Seattle Decided Its Own Elevation
A forgotten 1877 municipal ordinance reveals the precise moment the city set its literal foundation, anchoring the downtown grid to a granite step on Commercial Street.
- The Great Rebuilding: How the Great Seattle Fire Forced a Modern City
In the smoldering aftermath of the 1889 Great Seattle Fire, city leaders and engineers seized the catastrophe as a singular opportunity to abandon the crooked, cramped street grid for a rational, expanded future.
- The Battle for Snoqualmie Falls
A high-stakes legal and land-grab feud erupts over plans to harness the falls for Seattle’s future electrical grid.
- The Struggle to Find Your Way in Early Seattle
Before the city had a standardized grid, navigating its muddy, stump-filled streets was a chaotic task—until one resident proposed a system that still echoes today.
- The Railroads Are Coming for Your River: Milwaukee Road’s Secret Land Grab
Agents of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad are quietly buying up ranches along the Columbia below Priest Rapids, signaling a massive hydroelectric and irrigation project that will reshape the region's power grid.
- A Final Insult for a Fallen Engineer
After an Everett railroad engineer died in a tragic mountain fall, his employers refused to pay for his transport, offering only a boxcar for the journey home.
- The State Draws a Street Grid Across Olympia's Tide Flats
The tide land appraisers lay out 150-foot avenues over the Olympia waterfront, naming them for Isaac Stevens, Governor Ferry and Columbia Lancaster, and reserving 300 feet of harbor for wharves, slips and commerce.
- Who Owns the Shoreline? Olympia’s Tide-Land Fight
A citizens’ commission debated street grids, meander lines, and property values as appraisers prepared to price the Olympia waterfront.
- Before the Railroads Cut Through Seattle, One Man Proposed a Saner Street Grid
A letter to the editor calls for wider avenues, a logical naming and numbering system, and railroad tracks that follow the platted streets—not slice across them at will.
- Four Railroads, One Street Grid, and a Deal Seattle Had to Approve
Great Northern, Northern Pacific and rival lines nearly settle how their tracks will cross south of downtown—if the city council will rewrite their franchises.
- The 3,249-Acre Map That Laid Out Seattle’s Waterfront
In 1895, King County appraisers filed the first full plat of Seattle’s tide lands—reserving broad rail avenues, harbor blocks and a street grid that still shadows the modern waterfront.