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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 1 |
| 1861 | 5 |
| 1862 | 1 |
| 1872 | 4 |
| 1876 | 15 |
| 1877 | 8 |
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| 1883 | 14 |
| 1884 | 3 |
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254 stories matching keeper
- The Editor Who Sold His Paper to a Brothel Keeper
A scathing letter in the Puget Sound Dispatch exposes the corrupt alliance between Seattle’s Republican party and its most notorious vice kingpins, asking: 'What of that newspaper publisher... who for a palm share in the wages of prostitution gives his aid and influence?'
- The Price of Resistance: Seattle Unions Take On 'Dark' Boarding House Practices
While Seattle’s 1887 press was full of land speculation and railroad hype, a quiet labor dispute reveals how maritime workers fought back against predatory rooming house keepers who swindled sailors out of their hard-earned pay.
- The War on Tacoma's Knothole Gang
When the local baseball management deployed a park keeper with a sharp stick to drive away children watching from a fence, the crowd turned on the club.
- The Gambler’s Shield: How Seattle Saloon Keepers Dodged Mayor Moras’ Purge
When Chief Justice Burke urged the city to revoke liquor licenses from gambling dens, the Common Council refused—citing legal technicalities and protecting the very establishments the mayor wanted shut down.
- The Seal Pup Wars: A Local Naturalist vs. The Smithsonian’s ‘Sense-Keeper’
James G. Swan, a long-time Neah Bay resident and customs inspector, challenges Henry W. Elliott’s decades-old claim that newborn fur seal pups sink like stones, offering eyewitness testimony from Captain Elijah McAlmond that they swim.
- The Perilous Bathing of the Seattle Snake-House
A keeper's routine bath for his serpents turns into a life-or-death struggle when a 14-foot boa constrictor decides to coil around his leg.
- Double License, Double Trouble in Issaquah
When Gilman—now Issaquah—incorporated, its new council demanded a second liquor license from saloonkeepers who had already paid King County. The county prosecutor said he could not protect them or refund their money.
- The Shadow Over Seattle: A Councilman’s Scathing Exposé of Vice
In 1891, a fiery letter from C. B. Bagley to the Post-Intelligencer accused the mayor and police chief of being puppets to the city’s most notorious gamblers and saloon-keepers.
- The Town That Suddenly Didn't Exist
A Supreme Court ruling declaring sixty Washington towns unconstitutional leaves saloon keepers in Roslyn facing a massive $10,000 licensing bill.
- A Widow's Justice: The High Cost of the Saloon
After a liquor-fueled murder left a young mother destitute, a Rockford jury issued a landmark verdict holding the saloon keeper financially responsible for the tragedy.
- The Abduction of a Lighthouse Keeper's Son
A mysterious robbery at the Admiralty Head light station left a 16-year-old boy missing and officials suspecting passing opium smugglers or indigenous travelers.
- The Converted Burglar and the Wire That Carried Him to Seattle
A Salvation Army convert walked into the Post-Intelligencer office to tell how he crossed the Kansas penitentiary wall hand over hand on an electric-light wire. This week a Kansas keeper came to take him back.
- The Great Puma Panic: How a Loose Cat and a Lucky Dog Sparked Chaos at Leschi Park
In the early days of Seattle's municipal parks, a puma escaped its cage, chased a terrier into a bear pit, and nearly cost the zookeeper his bones in a brawl that read like a cartoon.
- The Saloon-Keepers’ Council
A scathing editorial exposes how Seattle’s early city government was dominated by saloon owners, liquor distributors, and property men who thrived on the vice trade.
- Life on the Edge of the World: A Dispatch from Tatoosh Island
A rare 1861 account of the desolate, storm-battered lives of lighthouse keepers and their interactions with the Makah people at the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
- Who Counts as a Merchant?
Judge Hanford rules that a Chinese restaurant owner is not a 'merchant' under the law, preventing his re-entry into the United States.
- Seattle's Saloon Keepers Face the 'High License' Squeeze
As 1885 begins, the city cracks down on liquor sellers, leaving many owners struggling to pay their bonds—and prompting some to consider an honest day's work instead.
- 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.
- Vancouver Goes Dry: The Day the Saloons Quit
In a display of industrial solidarity, Vancouver's saloon keepers shut every business in town to protest the enforcement of Sunday closing laws.
- The Book-Keeper and the Plumber Who Milked Twenty-Six Cows Before Breakfast
Two Spokane office men built a dairy on the Spokane River without quitting their day jobs — and sent Hoard's Dairyman the receipts, down to the price of bran.
- The Shocking Case of the Napping Keeper
A Seattle hospital patient, presumed to be suffering from narcotic poisoning, is jolted back to 'life' by a doctor’s electric battery—only for the doctors to realize they had the wrong man.
- New Hotel Regulations Threaten Tacoma's Small Boarding Houses
A proposed legislative act would force small rooming houses to meet strict hotel standards, placing a financial burden on widows and small-scale landlords.
- Predatory Saloon Keeper Targets Puyallup Landholder
An Indian man faces the potential loss of his property after signing a document he believed was a loan mortgage, but which turned out to be a deed.
- The Plot to Lock Up a Witness: How Greed Tried to Silence a Pioneer
William De Shaw, a respected Seattle merchant and witness to a will worth millions in British Columbia, was nearly committed to an insane asylum by land speculators who wanted his testimony silenced.
- Brutal Stabbing in the Red Light District
A local restaurant keeper is fighting for his life after a violent confrontation in the Rose Street red light district.
Also about this, in other words
- The Landlady of Cherry Street
A Seattle lodging house keeper is hauled into court after an altercation with a troublesome tenant—a minor dispute that reveals the grit of a changing city.
- The Unlikely Bond Between a Convict and His Keeper
A rare glimpse of humanity inside the grim walls of a frontier jail, where a long-term prisoner and the man paid to guard him found a surprising connection.
- A Warning to the Shanghaiers of Tacoma
A notorious boarding house keeper is sent to prison for his brutal, predatory business practices.
- Saloon Keeper Launches Impeachment War
After being denied a license, a local pioneer targets city officials for illegal self-dealing in Vancouver's municipal government.
- The Unwelcome Guest in the Banana Crate
A Black Diamond baker discovers a live stowaway from the tropics in his pantry.
- The Storekeeper's Trap
A local clerk manages to outwit a thief in a high-stakes standoff at a country store.
- A Frontier Promise Kept
In an era of rugged isolation, an anonymous immigrant couple reflects on twenty years of marriage, the silence of their home, and the sudden joy of a child arriving on Christmas Day.
- A Lodging-House Keeper’s Domestic Crisis
After a brief family reconciliation, a proprietor at the Babcock House finds himself abandoned by his wife and young son.