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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1862 | 1 |
| 1871 | 1 |
| 1872 | 1 |
| 1878 | 1 |
| 1880 | 3 |
| 1883 | 6 |
| 1884 | 2 |
| 1885 | 11 |
| 1886 | 5 |
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| 1888 | 8 |
| 1889 | 7 |
| 1890 | 4 |
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| 1928 | 1 |
104 stories matching horribl
- The Murder in the Bunkhouse North of Auburn
A young Japanese labor contractor was beaten and killed as he slept in a cabin on J.W. Nails's farm; a roommate was jailed while blood trails, a loaded musket and an opium pipe deepened the mystery.
- The Siege and Tragedy at Friday Harbor
A reclusive farmer's descent into madness and murder in the San Juan Islands ended in a gruesome, fiery standoff with local law enforcement.
- 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.
- A Tragic Railroad Accident
A young man loses both feet after falling between train cars while riding illegally.
- The Deadly Sidewalks of Old Seattle
A local minister’s tumble into a 'horrible pit' sparks public outrage over the city’s treacherous, poorly lit, and uneven walkways.
- Tragedy at Artondale: A Worker Maimed by Dynamite
A laborer near Tacoma is left sightless and near death after a stump-clearing accident goes wrong.
- The Lighthouse Keeper’s Rain-Soaked Exile
A desperate account of life on Tatoosh Island, where the constant thunder of the foghorn and relentless rainfall drove a keeper to the brink.
- Tragic Dynamite Explosion Kills Three Workers
A supply of frozen dynamite, left too close to a fire to thaw, detonates at a Northern Pacific work site.
- Tragedy on the Tracks in Spokane Falls
A laborer is found horribly mangled near the depot in what is presumed to be a tragic accident born of intoxication.
- The Great Seattle Fire: How a Painter’s Fall Saved the City
In the chaos of the 1889 inferno, a worker’s tragic accident at a construction site inadvertently alerted the city to the approaching flames, turning a moment of horror into a pivotal warning.
- The Great Seattle Rebuild: How the 1889 Fire Transformed the City
In the chaotic days following the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, the city raced to replace charred ruins with brick, while grappling with the ethical dilemma of redirecting disaster relief funds intended for distant cities.
- Fire Damp and Twenty-Three Dead at Blue Canyon
A gas explosion in a new coal working near Lake Whatcom kills twenty-three miners and forces a state inspection into what the company knew about the mine’s ventilation.
- Fifty Turns on the Shaft: A Foundry Apprentice's Miraculous Escape
Nineteen-year-old Charles Meydenbauer was caught in the shafting at Moran's foundry, spun fifty times twenty feet above the floor—and lived to describe it.
- Death Reared Its Horrid Head: Steam Heater Explosion Kills Two Men in Downtown Seattle
A careless Japanese fireman left a boiler unattended at Second and Washington, causing a catastrophic explosion that killed one man instantly and mortally wounded another.
- The Judge Who Wanted to Join the Salvation Army
Probate Judge Wickersham faces seduction charges in Tacoma; his defense seeks a venue change as he jokes about his future with the Salvation Army.
- The Mysterious Death on Mercer Island
A secret society lodge mourns the loss of a prominent member killed in an ambush on the shores of Lake Washington.
- A Midnight Knock, a Hidden Fortune, and a Brutal Beating on Vashon Island
Two men demand an old rancher's money, bind and club him, then ransack his cabin for a cache of cash. Seattle police arrest a suspect—and then the victim's wife.
- The Tragedy at the Soap Factory
A local businessman meets a horrific end after falling into a vat of boiling grease.
- A Saw Cut Through His Brain. Seattle Doctors Watched Him Live.
Horatio Stetson's head was nearly split in two by a rip saw at a Seattle mill. Thirty-six hours later, he was talking, moving his limbs, and astonishing the physicians at Providence Hospital.
- The Murder Foretold: Three Japanese Laborers Held Without Bail
A witness testifies that one suspect predicted the killing hours in advance, and a bloody butcher knife is found in a kitchen wall. Three Japanese men are ordered held without bail for the murder of a Japanese boss near Christopher.
- Caught in the Dynamo: A Tacoma Worker Squeezed to Death at His Post
Edward H. Curran was at his station in the Tacoma Light and Water Company's electric plant when the machinery pulled him through a gap far too small for a man, breaking nearly every bone in his body.
- A Chinese Student's 1929 Speech Named the Racism Washington Tried to Forget
At the University of Washington's Cosmopolitan Club, Wesley Kai Hwa Kwang catalogued a century of anti-Chinese violence — including the 1885 killings in Squak Valley and the burning of Tacoma's Chinatown — and asked a white audience to account for it.
- The Bridge That Broke: Tacoma's Infrastructure Crisis and the Union Mutiny
As a vital bridge spanning the Puyallup River collapses under its own weight, Tacoma residents face logistical chaos while a separate maritime labor dispute erupts into violence on the docks.
- The Tragedy of the Diver in Tacoma Harbor
A routine salvage operation to reach a sunken vessel turned fatal when a burst air pipe left a diver trapped in the depths of Puget Sound.
- The Horror in the Brush
Surveyors working in the woods of West Seattle discover a yellow trunk containing a gruesome, blood-stained discovery that suggests a dark crime.
Also about this, in other words
- A Desperate Night at the Clifton House
A Clallam County resident struggling with alcoholism and personal heartache attempts to end his life in a downtown hotel.