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|---|---|
| 1871 | 1 |
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210 stories matching grip
- The Deckhand Who Went Overboard in Box Canyon
Painting the steamer Metaline, Frank Spaulding missed a grip rail and plunged into the cold, swift Pend Oreille River—then nearly cramped before a crewman fished him out with a pole.
- The Tragic Cost of Seattle's Early Cable Cars
A mother sacrifices her life to save her children after a runaway cable car loses its grip at Second and Pine, exposing the perils of the city’s rapid, unregulated infrastructure boom.
- The Mystery of the Switchman’s Missing Fortune
A wealthy rail switchman dies before he can reveal the location of his life savings, which he carried in two mysterious suitcases.
- The Elderberry Wine Defense: How a Contested Election Collapsed in Laughter
Populists dropped their challenge to Commissioner Nickerson, but testimony in the sheriff and coroner contests turned up sailors voting under protest and a lunch bag of elderberry wine at a Franklin polling place.
- The Mob That Tore Seattle Apart
Court testimonies from the 1886 anti-Chinese riots reveal a city in the grip of a violent, organized crusade to forcibly expel its Chinese residents.
- The Railway Gold Rush: When Every Line Wanted a Piece of Seattle
In 1890, Seattle was the ultimate prize for three competing transcontinental railroads, leading to a tangled mess of franchise wars, tide flat terminal deals, and high-stakes corporate maneuvering.
- Midnight Panic at the St. Cloud
A spectacular five-story blaze in downtown Seattle forces guests to flee in their nightclothes, leaving a landmark hotel in ruins.
- The Siege of Seattle: When Martial Law Came to the Waterfront
As anti-Chinese riots gripped Seattle in February 1886, Governor Watson Squire declared martial law, bringing in federal troops to suppress the violence and restore order at the docks.
- A Circular Saw Opened His Skull—and He Stayed Conscious
At the Stetson Post Mill on Commercial Street, engineer Horatio Stetson crawled under a rip-saw table to fix a belt. The saw caught his head, cutting through bone and into his brain, yet he never lost consciousness.
- The Fake Postal Inspector Who Robbed the Great Northern — and Got Away With Less Than $5
A bogus federal inspector bound two mail clerks, rifled registered pouches, and slipped off the Oriental Limited at Spokane, leaving Newport authorities to piece together a brazen, almost profitless heist.
- The Great Land Grab Ends: Northern Pacific's Grip on Washington Territory Loosens
A landmark federal decision strips a massive railroad monopoly of its indemnity lands, opening vast swaths of Washington to homesteading settlers.
- The Great Northern Paralyzed: A Railway Strike Grips the Northwest
American Railway Union members walk off the job, leaving trains idle and the city's rail infrastructure in limbo as local brotherhoods face a takeover by a newer, militant labor force.
- The Saloon Wars: How Seattle’s Council Killed the Fight to Ban Bars from Residential Streets
In a heated March 1904 council meeting, reformers fought to keep saloons off streets where wives and children walked. The measure failed, revealing deep corruption and the powerful grip of liquor interests on city government.
- The Sunday Saloon War: When Seattle’s Business Elite Fought for the Right to Rest
In January 1885, a heated civic battle erupted over the enforcement of Sunday closing laws, pitting the city’s liquor trade against a coalition of reformers and weary laborers.
- The Sheriff Who Refused to Enforce Mob Rule
In 1885, as anti-Chinese sentiment gripped Seattle, Sheriff J.H. McGraw defied a mass meeting of local citizens by refusing to join an exclusionary committee, citing his oath of office and the rule of law.
- The Bonfire of the Vanities on Occidental Square
Months after a jubilant, torch-lit victory party in Seattle, the city’s new power-brokers were left holding the bag as lawlessness and economic despair gripped the town.
- The Shadow of the Noose: The Murder Trial of O.B. Miller
A gripping courtroom drama unfolds in Seattle as O.B. Miller faces his third trial for the 1887 murder of two men on Lake Washington.
- Tacoma Man Arrested for Refusing Smallpox Vaccination
As fear of disease grips the border, travelers are being forcibly vaccinated and quarantined in a climate of escalating hysteria.
- The High Stakes of the 1894 City Election
As Seattle prepares for a municipal election under the Australian ballot system, the city is gripped by political rallies, accusations of forgery, and debates over the future of infrastructure funding.
- Ambushed by the Tracks
Striking workers and federal marshals exchange fire on the rails near Puyallup as the 1894 Pullman strike grips Western Washington.
- 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.
- Switchmen's Strike Tightens Its Grip on Northwest Freight
Despite railroad claims that operations are normal, the American Federation of Labor steps in to support the striking switchmen as shipping remains at a standstill.
- The Clam-Seller and the Street-Car: A Seattle Reckoning
When a man was killed by a train on a Seattle street, a bystander's callous comment sparked a confrontation that exposed the deep-seated tensions of the city's growing industrial landscape.
- The Great Terminus Fever of 1871
As rumors swirled about the location of the Northern Pacific Railroad’s Pacific Coast terminus, Seattleites were gripped by a volatile, real-estate-driven madness that made men 'demented' and land values skyrocket.
- The Klondike Gold Rush Arrives in Seattle
When the steamer Humboldt pulled into the Arlington Dock, it carried a fortune in gold dust and the dreams of men hoping to strike it rich in the North.
Also about this, in other words
- A Cable Car Gripmans's Violent Run-In
A cable car operator faces legal trouble after a collision with a child results in a serious infection.
- A Near-Miss and a Generous Gesture
A Seattle gripman saves a man from a streetcar accident, leading to an unlikely show of gratitude and a $50 gift.
- The Brutal Reality of 'Assumption of Risk' in the Mills
A shingle sawyer loses his hand in a mill accident, only to have his lawsuit dismissed due to legal doctrines protecting corporations.
- A Circular Saw, a Jammed Board, and a Mill Hand's Narrow Escape
L. C. Grimmel lost a finger and nearly his whole hand at Johnson & Co.'s mill when a stuck board freed the saw without warning.
- The Stranglehold at Turner Hall
A local wrestling match turns into a scene of chaotic challenges and bravado in Seattle.
- Firefighter Injured in High-Angle Practice Drill
A dangerous training exercise on Sixth Street leaves a fireman with severe hand injuries after equipment fails.
- The Real Estate Handshake: A Forgotten Legal Precedent
An 1889 court ruling from Kansas reverberated in Seattle, forcing a change in how developers and land brokers accounted for profits.
- A Perilous Ascent on Front Street
A construction worker suffers a violent fall while building a new home, sparking a community health scare in 1870s Seattle.