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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1872 | 2 |
| 1876 | 3 |
| 1877 | 1 |
| 1878 | 2 |
| 1879 | 1 |
| 1883 | 1 |
| 1887 | 1 |
| 1888 | 1 |
| 1889 | 2 |
| 1891 | 2 |
| 1892 | 1 |
| 1893 | 4 |
| 1894 | 4 |
| 1895 | 1 |
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| 1903 | 1 |
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| 1909 | 1 |
| 1916 | 1 |
| 1917 | 1 |
| 1925 | 1 |
33 stories matching lame
- The Victorian Era's Original 'Manosphere' Rant
A satirical lecture from 1879 captures the era's obsession with policing women's appearances and the absurdity of 'social performance' in the Pacific Northwest.
- The Everett Dog Catcher Conflict
A simmering dispute between the city marshal and the police captain over the humiliation of dog-catching duties ends in a standoff with service revolvers.
- The Miracle Cure-Alls of 1870s Seattle
Before modern medicine, newspaper columns were filled with aggressive marketing for 'Pain Eradicators' and 'Radical Cures' that promised to fix everything from catarrh to death itself.
- 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 City’s New Fire Engine Takes a Dive
A brand new, expensive fire engine rolls off a wharf and sinks into the bay during a botched test run.
- Fireworks Panic at Wright Park
A lack of basic safety measures at Tacoma's Fourth of July celebration nearly leads to a deadly stampede.
- The 50-Year Marriage That Defied Poverty: A Spokane Woman’s Quest for Work
When a rural Washington couple faced ruin from debt and injury, the wife took a train to Spokane with nothing but her satchel and a fierce determination to earn her keep.
- The Runaway's Plea for Mercy
A teenage girl escapes her abusive uncle and aunt in Port Angeles, only to be detained by Port Townsend police while trying to return to the only home she ever knew.
- Denied Shelter at the Hospital, A Woman Gives Birth in a Police Station
A tragic case of medical red tape and bureaucratic cruelty exposes the lack of a social safety net in 1893 Seattle.
- Mill Tragedy in Cosmopolis
A local worker faces permanent injury after a horrific accident at the saw.
- The Tragic End of Peter Legray
A quiet life on the Seattle waterfront ended in a lonely, tide-swept death, highlighting the stark invisibility of the city's vulnerable in 1887.
- The Paper War: How Seattle’s ‘Public Thieves’ Exposed a Corrupt Ring
In 1872, the *Puguet Sound Dispatch* accused local officials and the rival *Intelligencer* of extorting taxpayers through inflated advertising rates for tax sales, framing it as a 'Tammany ring' stealing from the public.
- The Ship Canal Double-Cross at the Democratic Convention
Seattle's delegates went to Olympia ready to die on the canal plank. Their own campaign manager had already sold them out.
- The Raspberry Bush Manhunt
A teenage jewel peddler leads Everett police on a frantic chase through a private backyard.
- The Lame-Duck Courthouse Deal That a Judge Had to Stop
Benton County's outgoing commissioners rammed through a courthouse contract and a $9,500 payment in their final hours — and the next morning the state Supreme Court's restraining order landed on the table.
- The Hunt for an Assassin
A violent robbery attempt in Butte, Montana, triggers a manhunt in the Seattle Chinese community, as local leaders fear a dangerous fugitive has arrived by steamer.
- Bertha Jarvis Wants Out
A widow who remarried in Renton in 1885 asks a Seattle court for divorce and a share of the property, cataloguing years of abuse, thrown food and threats against her children.
- The Professor’s Last Trick: Clara Baldwin’s Final Spiritualist Spectacle
In a packed hall in Seattle, the renowned medium Clara Baldwin performed her final show before departing for Portland, captivating the audience with 'wonderful bat' illusions and binding herself in chains to prove her powers were real.
- The Audition at Leslie’s
When an art agency put out a call for a model, dozens of women showed up at a steep office staircase, each hoping for the stability of a steady wage.
- Seattle's Great Tent Crisis
After the Great Fire of 1889, the city struggled to regulate the makeshift shanties and board-and-canvas tents cluttering the city limits.
- The State’s Powerless Labor Inspector
A deputy labor commissioner finds poor conditions for women and children in Everett, but discovers the law offers her no teeth to force compliance.
- A Hunter's Bear Hug Nearly Becomes His Last
Adam Mechling shot at what he took for a fawn in the Skagit County woods and found himself beneath a 300-pound she bear.
- The Rose Thief of James Street
A Seattle gardener threatens to deploy a bulldog—or forty—after midnight raids carry off her prize roses, including the star-crossed Baron and Baroness.
- Sixty Deputies, a Special Train, and the Hunt for an Escaped Prisoner
King County officers sweep the woods near Black River Junction for a jailbreaker named Blanck, borrow bloodhounds that don't answer, and get word that the bunko man Holmes has been spotted near Snohomish.
- Olympia Votes Out the Old Council — and Inherits a Financial Mess
A day after the city election, the Tribune calls on the lame-duck mayor and council to resign so the city can untangle a debt larger than the law allows — and demands streetcars, street work and honest handling of the public's money.
Also about this, in other words
- The Unseen Labor of a Male Housekeeper
A rare 1888 account reveals a 'male housekeeper' performing the exhaustive, often back-breaking daily labor typically expected of women, in a time when such roles were strictly gender-segregated.
- Sixteen Paupers, a Clay-Bed Well, and a Farm Not Fit to Live On
County commissioners tour the county poor farm and find cracked fences, filthy bedding, horses bleeding on barbed wire and water unfit to drink. The old place will be sold, they say — but only if a poor farm is worth having at all.
- A Saloon Brawl and the Logic of 'Reddy' Long
After wrecking a lunch counter and brandishing brass knuckles, a man offers the court a grim critique of Seattle's drinking culture.
- The Unsinkable Seaman
After losing his leg in a shipboard accident, an American sailor invents a wooden limb that keeps him working the high seas.
- The Unlucky Traveler of King County
A lonely worker injured on the job finds himself a pawn in a bureaucratic tug-of-war between the county and his employer.
- The Tragedy of the Pigeon-Toed Dude
A brief, biting observation from the Seattle Press on the shifting aesthetics of late 19th-century masculinity and fashion.
- The Unlucky Three: A Case of Professional Laziness
Three men in Seattle face a week of hard labor after a judge determines they are unwilling to work for a living.
- The Myth of the Lazy Laborer
A Seattle newspaper editorial in 1878 berates unemployed men for refusing to repair flood-damaged dykes, framing poverty as a moral failing despite local economic instability.