Research the archive
Narrow 25,688 newspaper stories by words, years, place, newspaper and subject. See when and where they ran, then download what you find.
Put a phrase in quotes ("rent strike") or leave a word out with a minus (strike -baseball). Old scans misspell names, so when little is found, near-spellings are offered.
Refine
Show the numbers
| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 4 |
| 1878 | 1 |
| 1880 | 1 |
| 1889 | 4 |
| 1891 | 2 |
| 1894 | 1 |
| 1895 | 1 |
| 1899 | 2 |
16 stories matching horrid
- 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 Treasurer Who Vanished, Then Wrote Home From Puget Sound
An Iowa county official disappeared in the 1870s. After his death, his family gathered at the Olympia Hotel to settle an estate—and letters revealed a hidden life, a bank failure, and a real-estate boom he hoped would make restitution possible.
- The Bachelor Plague: A Warning to Women Considering Washington Territory
A satirical column in the Waterville Empire warns Eastern women that the territory is overrun with 'horrid bachelors,' urging them to come anyway for the climate and soil.
- The Miracle Doctor of Pine Street: How One Man’s ‘New Science’ Tamed Seattle’s Sickness
In the winter of 1890, Dr. J. Eugene Jordan’s 'Histogenetic' remedies were curing everything from scrofula to neuralgia, drawing testimonies from desperate locals who claimed conventional medicine had failed them.
- The Ghost of the Gatherer: A Captain’s Suicide Haunted by His Own Cruelty
Decades after a horrific voyage where officers maimed and murdered sailors to escape their 'demoniac' captain, the master of the ship dies by suicide in Puget Sound, fulfilling a prophecy of vengeance.
- The Asylum Ward’s Unseen Hunger
A patient describes the grueling conditions inside a Seattle insane asylum, where the sick are fed wormy prunes and bread meant for the refuse pile, while robust workers with influence dine on fresh milk.
- The Great Nude Debate: When Seattle’s Church Ladies Tried to Save Their Living Pictures
A fundraising gala at Christ Episcopal Church descended into moral panic when vestrymen declared 'living pictures' (nude art) too scandalous for the pulpit, forcing a cancellation that left donors furious and ladies defiant.
- The Bread and Butter Vote: How the Custom House Ring Rigged Port Townsend Politics
In a stunning display of patronage politics in September 1876, federal employees in Port Townsend marched in lockstep to defeat local opposition, proving that government jobs were still the ultimate political currency.
- The Beating of Henry Brown: A Runaway Elevator Boy and a Family's Violent Secret
A 14-year-old black elevator operator flees his home after a savage whipping by his father, revealing a tangled story of poverty, pride, and punishment in 1894 Seattle.
- The Night of the War Dance: A Frontier Survival Story
A young fur trader, caught in the crossfire of escalating tensions during the Indian Wars, finds his only salvation in the quick thinking of a woman named E-wan.
- The Elevator Man Who Fell Through the Transom
Joseph Albright had run the elevator in the Seattle National Bank building for barely a month when a half-second's slip crushed him between cage and door — and sent his body through the glass over the ground-floor entrance.
- The Engineer’s Ash-Box Ghost: A Tale of New Year’s Eve Peril
In a column dated October 1870, the Seattle Daily Intelligencer reprints a harrowing tale from an old engineer about surviving a wreck by hiding under his locomotive's ash pan during a blizzard.
- The Midnight Butcher of Seattle
A traveler stops for the night at a remote fisherman's hut, only to find himself terrorized by the sound of steel scraping against stone.
- The Paradoxes' Last Argument
After three years of domestic strife, a Seattle couple reconciles on the eve of a formal separation, proving that sometimes the best way to handle a 'horrid temper' is to tear up the legal papers.
- The Underground Economy of Club Love Letters
A century before texting, Seattle's gentlemen of leisure found ways to bypass the stuffy, anti-romance rules of private social clubs.
- The Boy from the Desert
A young man, raised in the comfort of a merchant’s home, struggles with an inexplicable longing for a life he never knew.
Also about this, in other words
- The 'Pitiful Hedizzened Hurlots': Seattle's Moral Panic Over the Steamship Brothels
In September 1872, a furious editorial in the *Seattle Daily Intelligencer* condemned the floating red-light districts on Puget Sound, accusing steamship lines of carrying 'pollution and death' to every port while politicians looked away.
- A Mental Health Crisis in North Yakima
A young Scandinavian immigrant struggles with radical political theory before a desperate suicide attempt at the McGlothlen House.
- A Heartrending Tragedy in Hereford Swamp
A father's desperate attempt to rescue his children from a falling tree results in a devastating loss of three lives.
- The Misery of the Miser’s Hoard
A destitute family in 1870s Seattle survives a devastating house fire only to unearth a fortune hidden beneath the ashes of their former home.
- The Health Board Targets Opera Alley's Squalor
City officials inspect disease-breeding housing conditions occupied by foreign laborers.
- The Preacher, the Deed, and the Burning House
A small-town minister's affair with a married parishioner ends in arson, a whitewash trial, and an effigy swinging from an electric light pole in the heart of Oakesdale.
- The Phosphorus Terror of Hoquiam
A saboteur sows the streets with incendiary devices, nearly reducing the town to ash before the rains intervene.
- A Dangerous Afternoon in Hover
Two young brothers suffer severe acid burns after a household mishap.