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1. The Beat Cop's Bad Joke

   A police officer on Queen Anne hill faces suspension after fabricating a robbery report as a 'joke'—much to the chagrin of city leadership.

   Jul 31, 1893The Seattle Post-IntelligencerQueen Anne Hill, Seattle, King CountyCity Hall · Scandal

2. The Price of a Prank on the Seattle Frontier

   A late-night practical joke almost turns fatal when a nervous citizen, conditioned by the rough-and-tumble reality of the city, nearly draws his pistol on a group of teenagers.

   Mar 30, 1878Puget Sound DispatchSeattle, King CountyStrange But True

3. A Dangerous Practical Joke

   A man is hospitalized after a prank turns into a violent confrontation, landing his three attackers in legal trouble.

   Apr 12, 1894Aberdeen HeraldAberdeen, Grays Harbor CountyTrue Crime

4. An April Fool’s Joke Gone Wrong

   A local office prank involving 'hard-boiled' eggs and croton oil turns into a bitter lesson in Seattle workplace etiquette.

   Apr 5, 1893The Seattle Post-IntelligencerSeattle, King CountyStrange But True

5. The Telephone Dust Prank

   A creative hoax in a small town fooled local housewives into wrapping their telephones in rags to 'blow out the dust.'

   Jun 17, 1915The Kennewick Courier-ReporterKennewick, Benton CountyStrange But True

6. The Open Secret of Puget Sound Smuggling

   A Treasury agent investigating the border dismisses reports of Chinese smuggling as 'exaggerated,' revealing the complicity of local lumbermen who view the law as a joke.

   Sep 20, 1883Seattle Daily Post-IntelligencerPort Townsend, Jefferson CountyExclusion & Resistance · True Crime

7. The Imaginary Inheritance

   A young man's prank about a fake Chinese inheritance snowballs into a lucrative, accidental fortune built on social perception.

   Jul 31, 1883Seattle Daily Post-IntelligencerSeattle, King CountyTrue Crime

8. The $10,000 Practical Joke on Representative Judson

   Legislators in Olympia pull a prank by forging a bill in the name of an unsuspecting Representative, only to have it officially recorded in the House journal.

   Feb 28, 1893The Seattle Post-IntelligencerOlympia, Thurston CountyCity Hall · Strange But True

9. The Gambler Who Outsmarted the City Hall

   In Tacoma, a local sharp named Morgan has become so powerful that citizens are joking he holds more sway than the elected officials.

   Feb 1, 1889The Seattle Post-IntelligencerTacoma, Pierce CountyCity Hall · Nightlife

10. The Hanged Corporal: A Seattle Guard Company Investigates Its Own Effigy Prank

    Officers admitted the facts but called it a practical joke—then promised to punish the men who strung up Corporal J. E. Boyer in effigy.

    Aug 14, 1894The Seattle Post-IntelligencerSeattle, King CountyStrange But True

11. The Garden Prank That Sour-Ed a Marriage

    A husband’s elaborate scheme to fool his wife with gilded pebbles backfires, leaving the household in a state of icy tension.

    Apr 17, 1890The Yakima HeraldYakima, Yakima CountyScandal

12. The Great Northern President vs. The Boarding House Landlady

    Railroad tycoon James J. Hill had to prove his identity with a handful of letters after being told to 'get out' by a Fairhaven woman who mistook him for a tramp.

    Jan 30, 1891The Seattle Post-IntelligencerSedro-Woolley, Skagit CountyStrange But True

13. An Officer's Surprising Thanksgiving Gift

    A Seattle patrolman expecting a crime scene instead finds himself showered with gratitude and a silk umbrella.

    Dec 2, 1893The Seattle Post-IntelligencerSeattle, King CountyStrange But True

14. The Legislative Prank That Backfired

    A Washington Territory legislator’s attempt to play a humorous political trick on a colleague turns into a serious row over parliamentary decorum.

    Jan 23, 1886Seattle Daily Post-IntelligencerOlympia, Thurston CountyCity Hall · Strange But True

15. The Conman of the Grand Pacific

    A hotelier’s prank turns into a headline as a fake British investor tricks a local reporter.

    Feb 9, 1893The Seattle Post-IntelligencerGrand Pacific Hotel, Tacoma, King CountyBoom & Bust · True Crime

16. A Seattle Editor's Jail Sentence—and His Gallows Joke

    C. H. Lugrin of the Telegram got three months and a $500 fine for criminal libel against Police Chief Bolton Rogers. He appealed—and joked that the judge couldn't hang him.

    Aug 12, 1894The Seattle Post-IntelligencerSeattle, King CountyCity Hall

17. A Young Man's Last Ride: Edward Kowald and the Cost of Hopping Freight

    Edward Kowald, 23, tried to hop a freight to Newport after quitting work at Penrith. He fell, lost both legs, and died the next morning—joking with friends until the end.

    Nov 16, 1907The Newport Miner (Newport, WA) 1899-CurrentNewport, Pend Oreille CountyWork & Pay · Disasters

18. The Practical Joke of the Frontier

    A settler’s terrifying encounter with two armed Indigenous men concludes not with the massacre he feared, but with a surreal—and expensive—demanding of his household supplies.

    Mar 24, 1877The Daily IntelligencerLewiston, Whitman CountyExclusion & Resistance · Strange But True

19. The Newport Hardware Man Who Went Through Johnstown — and Kept the River Mud to Prove It

    In his store window, E. E. Reid displays a gilded St. George torn from a clock and a rocking chair pulled from the 1889 Johnstown flood — silt still hardened in the crevices — and jokes that he is still selling hardware because the flood only went through him, not over him.

    May 14, 1908The Newport Miner (Newport, WA) 1899-CurrentNewport, Pend Oreille CountyDisasters · Gone Forever

20. The Tin-Can Alarm Clock Prank That Sent a Spokane Sleeper Racing Downtown at 1:30 A.M.

    A prominent citizen rigged a string-and-tin-can wake-up call with the night watchman. Local pranksters pulled the string first—and he dressed and ran for a train that wasn't leaving.

    Aug 4, 1883Spokane Falls ReviewSpokane, Spokane CountyStrange But True

21. The Midnight Ambush on the Northern Pacific Line

    When an informal poker game at a remote sawmill camp turned into a violent robbery, the patrons initially thought it was all just a practical joke.

    Sep 30, 1885Seattle Daily Post-IntelligencerBlack Diamond, King CountyTrue Crime

22. The Roadmaster's Gold Watch and the Mail Robber Who Came Back for More

    Samuel Henry of the N.P.R.R. woke to find his watch gone and assumed it was a joke. A Tacoma marshal followed a hunch to a young man fresh out of the penitentiary — who confessed, sold the watch on Pacific Avenue, and then disappeared.

    Aug 14, 1883Seattle Daily Post-IntelligencerPacific Avenue, Tacoma, Pierce CountyTrue Crime

23. The Strange Case of 'Danger' the Dog at Justice Coomb's Court

    A local street joke involving a dog, a dry goods box, and the Chief of Police highlights the whimsical side of early Seattle's judicial system.

    Apr 16, 1882Seattle Daily Post-IntelligencerSeattle, King CountyStrange But True

24. The Fiendish 'Joke' at the Seattle Waterfront

    A saloon keeper is arrested for a brutal assault on an intoxicated man, having stuffed a burning newspaper into the man's throat as a spectacle for his patrons.

    Jun 1, 1889The Seattle Post-IntelligencerSeattle, King CountyTrue Crime

25. A Tough Stretch of Vacations

    A local family faces health trouble for the second year in a row after returning from their trip, leading to a grim joke about the dangers of time off.

    Sep 5, 1924White Bluffs SpokesmanWhite Bluffs, Benton CountyWork & Pay

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