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| Year | Stories |
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| 1876 | 1 |
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37 stories matching hardest
- The Federal Labor Agent Who Walked Seattle’s Strike Map
In 1895, a U.S. Labor Department investigator arrived to untangle seven years of strikes and lockouts—and expected his hardest case in the Coeur d’Alene mines.
- The First Votes: When Seattle Women Went to the Polls in 1886
On a chilly, foggy November day, Seattle's women braved election-day crowds to cast their ballots, marking a pivotal, short-lived moment in Washington's struggle for suffrage.
- The Great Terminal Tug-of-War
Henry Villard's railway strategy promises to connect Seattle to the Pacific, but local pride turns the terminal question into a bitter race between rival cities.
- Seven Months at Sea: The State of Maine’s Ordeal
The State of Maine left New York in July 1892 and reached Seattle 201 days later, her crew disabled by saltwater boils, her water spoiled, and her captain forced to beat men to the pumps.
- Turning Stumps into a City: Seattle's Great Transformation
For a quarter-century, the residents of Seattle have been waging a slow, expensive war against the forest, clearing timber, leveling hills, and filling ravines to make way for a modern city.
- The Brutal Labor of Clearing the Snohomish River
For over two years, crews braved the most dangerous and grueling work in the territory to clear the river for navigation, battling everything from treacherous snags to a lack of promised payment.
- Washington's 1889 Convention Settles Prohibition, Corporations
Delegates in Olympia rush to finalize state constitutional provisions, including contentious debates over railroad commissions and alien land ownership.
- The Waterfront Tug-of-War (Feb 18, 1894)
A bitter labor battle erupts on the Seattle waterfront between the Sailors' Union of the Pacific and an alliance of ship owners and the Sailors' Home.
- A Mother Fights for Her Children—and the Court Hears How She Wore Men's Clothes to Save a Timber Claim
In a Seattle habeas corpus hearing, Mrs. L. L. Shaffer battles her husband for custody of their two daughters as neighbors and her stepmother testify to her character.
- The Sunday Bond Deal That Split Benton County
Two commissioners secretly arranged a courthouse bond sale, and a courtroom fight over lost premiums exposed how far they went to keep the third commissioner—and the public—in the dark.
- Free Wool, Free Lumber: Washington's Mill Towns Brace for the Tariff Shock
Seattle and Tacoma manufacturers warn that the new Havemeyer tariff will cut wages, ruin sheep raisers and hand the lumber trade to Canadian timbermen.
- Seattle's Church Basketball Rivalry Was Already a 500-Person Spectacle in 1895
St. Mark's Episcopal beat First Baptist 4–2 at the YMCA gym, in a game so physical that a few spectators objected.
- The Labor Fight Against Tuberculosis
Everett’s organized labor movement joins a national campaign to combat the 'White Plague,' an occupational disease hitting mill and factory workers the hardest.
- Walla Walla's Growing Thirst
City officials begin enforcing strict sprinkling hours as a record-breaking rainfall deficiency threatens the local water supply.
- Land Speculation or Lifeline? The Fight Over Seattle’s Lake Washington Canal
Senator Squire battles Southern committee members and rumors of a land grab to keep Seattle’s canal in the federal river and harbor bill.
- 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 Last Stand of Denny’s Old Home: A Seattle Landmark Consumed by Fire
One of the city's oldest structures, a cedar-built house on Second Avenue, was reduced to ashes early this morning. The blaze, sparked by a fallen lamp in the room of a shoe company employee, claimed the home of Mrs. Kali Palmer and her children, who barely escaped through the roof.
- The Great Divide: The Fight for a Mountain Rail Link
As the population of Western Washington booms in 1882, Seattle residents grow tired of paying for infrastructure projects while Eastern Washington neighbors demand the work for free.
- A Christmas on the Ice King: The Climb That Saw Rainier Smoking
In 1894, Major Ingraham led six men, seven homing pigeons, and a camera onto Mount Rainier’s glaciers. They came back with frostbite, a story of steam and smoke rising from the crater—and one pigeon missing.
- The Teamsters’ Fight for the Sunday Off
A landmark report on how the International Brotherhood of Teamsters transformed the lives of workers by ending mandatory Sunday labor.
- The Price of a Child's Abuse
A Seattle court hears harrowing testimony of an acrobat child beaten by his handlers, sparking a packed, tense courtroom drama.
- Gas Company Workers Walk Out Over Wages
Thirty-one men laying mains in Tacoma’s North End strike after being refused a 25-cent daily raise.
- The Science of the Double Shock
Kennewick housewives master a high-stakes food preservation method to support the wartime conservation effort.
- The Man Who Found Gold on the McMillan
C.P. Osborne returns from the Yukon with tales of rich placer deposits and starving travelers, predicting a new gold rush rivaling Klondike.
- The Great Seattle Teacher Pay Cut of 1894
Facing public backlash, a school board director defends controversial salary slashes that hit the lowest-paid educators hardest.
Also about this, in other words
- The 'Hard Times' Social in Black Diamond
Coal miners and their families in Black Diamond held a 'Hard Times' social, where the most bedraggled costumes were awarded prizes, offering a brief moment of levity during a period of economic strain.
- The Struggle for an Honest Hour: A Farmer’s Grumble in 1888
An account from a local farm near Puyallup reveals the era's persistent struggle to balance agricultural labor with a zero-tolerance policy for drinking, echoing the intense pressure of the frontier economy.
- The Great Seattle 'Hard Times' of 1885
As local businesses scrambled to collect debts and residents bartered farm goods for services, Seattle residents looked at the nation’s economic slump and wondered if they could weather the storm.
- The Hard Pan Tax Dispute
A small-town legal battle in Anacortes reveals how railroad companies and local governments clashed over the definition of 'rock' to dodge municipal assessments.
- The Toughest Job in the State
Senator Wesley L. Jones defends Prohibition Director Roy C. Lyle against critics, promising severe penalties for any official caught winking at law-breakers.
- The Hard Choice: Keeping the Farm During the Lean Years
Dean Edward C. Johnson of the State College of Washington weighs in on whether young men should abandon agriculture during an era of historic economic struggle for farmers.
- The Hardscrabble Frontier of the Stillaguamish
A detailed 1879 survey of the Stillaguamish River valley reveals a diverse community of pioneers, Prussian soldiers, and dreamers attempting to tame the wilderness of the upper valley.
- The Perils of the Horse Heaven Road
A local motorist recounts the nightmare of driving between Bickleton and Mabton, where a fence rail was required to pry his car from the dust.