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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1877 | 1 |
| 1883 | 1 |
| 1884 | 2 |
| 1886 | 1 |
| 1889 | 4 |
| 1891 | 5 |
| 1892 | 3 |
| 1893 | 6 |
| 1894 | 3 |
| 1895 | 7 |
| 1899 | 2 |
| 1900 | 1 |
| 1903 | 2 |
| 1904 | 4 |
| 1909 | 5 |
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| 1912 | 1 |
| 1914 | 2 |
| 1917 | 2 |
55 stories matching hamper
- The Price of Dissent in Kennewick
A local resident writes to the paper to denounce a neighbor for 'treasonable utterances' and calls for a stricter enforcement of loyalty during wartime.
- The Great Northern Snow Plow: President Hill’s Battle with the Cascades
While Seattle slept, railroad magnate James J. Hill fought a war against the elements, his train delayed by drifts and snowplows in a dramatic struggle that highlights the fragility of early 20th-century transit.
- Bellingham Bay Burned While Puget Sound Choked on Smoke
Forest fires from the British border to the Olympic Mountains sent a pall over Seattle, slowed steamers and trains, and destroyed homes, a bridge and a thirty-room mansion near Whatcom.
- 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 Brutal Betrayal of Ida Bracken
A husband forces his wife into prostitution before assaulting her in a notorious district rooming house.
- Everett Unions Rally to Fund McNamara Defense
Facing mounting costs for the McNamara brothers' legal defense, Everett's trade unions plan a benefit ball to challenge the influence of corporate capital.
- The Great Railway Monopoly Struggle of 1877
An editorial from the Seattle Weekly Dispatch reveals the town's early, bitter fight against the Northern Pacific Railroad's land-grabbing tactics.
- The Great Reconstruction Logjam
Following the 1889 fire, a desperate, city-wide shortage of building materials and poor infrastructure leaves Seattle’s recovery stalled.
- A Federal Judge Orders the Northern Pacific's Workers Not to Strike
With wages about to be cut, railroad receivers win an injunction forbidding engineers, firemen, trainmen and switchmen from combining or quitting—setting up a collision between the courts and organized labor.
- The Board of Health Weighed Closing Every School in Seattle
Scarlet fever was moving through the city's classrooms in May 1895, and the men who ran public health argued over whether to send thousands of children home for six weeks — and whether parents could be trusted to report the sickness at all.
- The Whistleblower Who Was Silenced by the State
Blanche Mason, a deputy labor commissioner, accused Washington's governor and his labor chief of burying her reports on the exploitation of working women to protect big business interests.
- The Battle for Sullivan Creek
A high-stakes legal fight over water rights and industrial development reveals the tension between speculative land-holding and the growth of the new town of Metaline.
- The Price of Desperation
A robbery of a life savings and a bureaucratic failure in the county health system lead to tragic outcomes for Seattle's vulnerable.
- The Girl Who Chopped Wood to Beat the Doctors
A young woman defying a terminal diagnosis by living in the Olympic Mountains is winning a battle against consumption.
- The Right to Vote Should Not Be an Obstacle Course
A Seattle judge strikes down a restrictive registration law that forced foreign-born citizens to constantly prove their naturalization status.
- The Price of Seattle's Growth
A desperate push to validate city warrants issued in the chaotic wake of the Great Seattle Fire and the city's sudden expansion.
- The High-Stakes Gamble at City Hall
Local gambling syndicates prepare a desperate political maneuver to force Mayor Ronald to legalize their operations upon his return from the East.
- Two Loggers Perish in Sub-Zero Tragedy
A falling tree claims the lives of two lumbermen near Elk, leaving their frozen bodies to be recovered by search parties.
- Fire Commissioner Accused of Drunkenness and Selling His Vote
Mayor Phelps files formal charges against George T. Masel, alleging he sold his vote for chief, kept the chief in fear, and attended a West Seattle fire drunk.
- The Unbuilt Dream of the Seattle Ship Canal
In 1892, rail giants and civic leaders pressed Congress for a canal to connect Seattle’s lakes to the Sound, arguing that suffocating railroad tracks were strangling local industry.
- The Great Walla Walla Water Heist
City officials discover a massive, clandestine system of secret pipes siphoning irrigation water into the municipal supply.
- Olympia's Backroom Bargain Over a Senate Seat
Lawmakers arrive in Olympia pledging to organize fast, but the fight over a U.S. Senate seat and the speakership is already reshaping the session.
- Tacoma’s Great Fires of 1903
A year-end audit of the city's fire department reveals a staggering $309,000 in property loss, largely driven by massive blazes at industrial warehouses and cereal mills.
- The Fire That Almost Stopped the Canal: $40,000 Loss at Big Eddy
A mysterious blaze destroys the machine and steam plants of the Washington Canal project, yet work on the massive irrigation artery continues without pause.
- The Quarantine of Tacoma: When a Hotel Became a Prison for Railroad Workers
In April 1898, a single case of smallpox in a Tacoma hotel triggered a massive quarantine that stranded dozens of railroad employees and paralyzed the city's transit network.
Also about this, in other words
- The Day the Hammock Betrayed George
A classic tale of a lover's spat and a very literal bit of karmic justice.
- The City Council’s Hammock Scandal
Seattle’s city fathers clash over the 'reckless extravagance' of buying thirty-four hammocks for the city jail.
- A Close Call at the Buffalo Shingle Mill
A mill worker is lucky to keep his arm after a terrifying accident with a shingle saw.
- The Perils of the Hand-Crank
A Hover resident sustains a serious injury while starting his automobile, highlighting the physical dangers of early motor travel.
- Humpy the Fisherman Is Shot Dead Over the Right to Cut Hay
A disabled fisherman and a rancher quarreled over who owned a patch of grass near Palmer Lake. It was the third killing caused by a ranch-boundary dispute in a single year.
- Hoquiam’s School Board Prioritizes Local Business Over Outsiders
While Hoquiam mandates that local contractors perform school heating work, Aberdeen officials look to Tacoma for technical installations.
- The Empathetic Pup of Idol Hill
A local carpenter finds comfort in a loyal companion who mirrors his own physical struggle.