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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 2 |
| 1858 | 6 |
| 1859 | 4 |
| 1860 | 1 |
| 1861 | 8 |
| 1862 | 4 |
| 1863 | 3 |
| 1872 | 10 |
| 1876 | 48 |
| 1877 | 21 |
| 1878 | 19 |
| 1879 | 1 |
| 1880 | 6 |
| 1882 | 7 |
| 1883 | 27 |
| 1884 | 19 |
| 1885 | 42 |
| 1886 | 15 |
| 1887 | 29 |
| 1888 | 21 |
| 1889 | 40 |
| 1890 | 5 |
| 1891 | 48 |
| 1892 | 138 |
| 1893 | 116 |
| 1894 | 124 |
| 1895 | 45 |
| 1897 | 3 |
| 1898 | 6 |
| 1899 | 28 |
| 1900 | 3 |
| 1902 | 5 |
| 1903 | 54 |
| 1904 | 17 |
| 1905 | 4 |
| 1908 | 1 |
| 1909 | 33 |
| 1910 | 4 |
| 1911 | 4 |
| 1912 | 1 |
| 1914 | 7 |
| 1915 | 15 |
| 1916 | 12 |
| 1917 | 10 |
| 1918 | 3 |
| 1922 | 2 |
| 1923 | 4 |
| 1924 | 3 |
| 1925 | 1 |
1,029 stories matching letter
- The Chamber Wants 500 Letters to Congress for a Nicaragua Canal
Seattle's Chamber of Commerce trustees endorse a coast-wide letter-writing campaign aimed at forcing a Senate vote on the Nicaragua canal before the middle of January.
- The Captain Who Caught a Monster: Seattle’s Own Sea Serpent Hoax
Captain Pat J. Boyton of Seattle claims to have captured a 63-foot sea serpent in the Pacific, sending a letter from his ship that has locals buzzing with wonder and skepticism.
- The Passionate Letters of a Skagit Rancher
A middle-aged man is arrested after his illicit love letters to a married woman in Illinois are discovered following her death.
- The Letter That Never Came: A Seattle Man’s Despair Over a Broken Heart
E.A. Kilder took his own life at the Hotel Metropole after missing a crucial message from his sweetheart, leaving behind only a tragic note to his brother.
- The Elopement That Seattle Couldn't Stop Watching
A music teacher and his married pupil vanish East, a husband follows, and a father-in-law claims the whole thing was a plot to win a divorce—while the young wife says she still believes her husband.
- The Seattle Postmaster's Inbox Woes
A satirical poetic complaint from 1885 captures the frustration of a growing city struggling with mail delivery, box rent, and the perceived indifference of the local postal bureaucracy.
- The Battle for the Homecoming: Tacoma vs. Seattle Over the First Washington
As Secretary of War Alger hints that troops may bypass Seattle to land in Tacoma, a civic war erupts over who gets to welcome the returning volunteers from Manila.
- The Insurance Fugitive's Last Laugh
After orchestrating a bizarre life insurance fraud involving a fake cremation, William Radloff writes a rambling, taunting letter to the Seattle police from his secret hiding place.
- The Lumberyard Letter Heist
A pile of discarded mail containing invoices and payments is discovered in a lumber yard, revealing the messy aftermath of a post office box theft.
- A Presidential Coincidence in Walla Walla
A local G.A.R. commander surprises Theodore Roosevelt by presenting a letter the President had written to him twenty years prior.
- The Rule That Told Workingmen to Keep Out of Politics
Everett's Labor Journal goes after Roosevelt's civil service order, arguing that machinists and mechanics in government shops are muzzled while partisan appointees run the machine — and quotes Grover Cleveland back at the administration to prove it.
- The Lost Letter of Port Townsend
A postal worker at the Port Townsend wharf brushes off a man’s frantic search for a missing letter, revealing a small, forgotten drama of 1888.
- The Effigy in the Pine Tree
Charles Gloystein crossed Spokane County's Populists and woke to find himself hanged in straw. Then he vanished.
- The Mugwump’s Ledger: How Seattle’s Territorial Secretary Gamed the Law Printing Contract
A fierce editorial exposes Secretary Owings for delaying the publication of territorial laws to favor a cronies’ printing bid, while padding the bill with 40 pages of his own party platform.
- Fifteen Minutes to Confess: The Morphine Trial of Port Townsend's Captain De Lion
A former mayor, Chilean consul and dry-dock promoter worth half a million dollars sits in superior court while his emaciated wife describes a year of morphine, delusion and a pocket watch set on the table between them.
- A Detective's Bizarre Extortion Claim
A Tacoma private investigator is accused of kidnapping a woman who claims he harassed her after a dispute over a $1,000 demand.
- The Engineer Who Says Olympia Stiffed Him for Sewer Plans
A civil engineer hired to draft Olympia’s sewers says the city accepted his $700 bid, starved him of data, then canceled his contract and paid another man $1,500 for plans he calls a public nuisance.
- The Strange Disappearance of Ollie Young’s Reputation
A man from the Puyallup Valley confronts the Chief of Police to clear a young woman's name after scandal-filled letters appear in a Tacoma newspaper.
- The Legal Limits of Private Passion
A Skagit County man is fighting a federal indictment for mailing 'obscene' letters to his late lover, claiming that private correspondence does not constitute public distribution.
- The Railroad Says It Has a Dock in Seattle and No Way to Reach It
Thomas F. Oakes tells Seattle's Chamber of Commerce that the Pacific steamship line is British-owned, that the Northern Pacific's own waterfront dock is useless without track connections — and that the city should help solve the problem.
- The Clumsy Forgery of a Political Appointment
Dr. Alfred N. Marion was amused to receive a fake appointment letter as deputy collector of customs, a prank aimed at Seattle's political circles.
- The Waterfront Scandal: A Questionable Contract for Seattle’s New Fire Boat
The Washington Iron Works alleges that city officials bypassed proper oversight in a murky deal for the city's new fire-fighting vessel.
- The Man Who Jumped the Fence: A Tale of Love, Debt, and Disappearance
A Seattle man recounts a twenty-year-old mystery involving an English defaulter who fled to Australia, married his way out of disgrace, and left behind only a letter and a fortune.
- The Cannery Confrontation: Tacoma’s Labor Fight Over Chinese Workers
When an agent attempted to bring Chinese laborers to a Tacoma cannery in 1887, city officials clashed over the rule of law versus the intense public anti-Chinese sentiment.
- Stolen at Six, He Waited Seventeen Years to Ask a Policeman for His Mother's Address
A quiet hospital steward in Seattle writes to New York's famous Inspector Byrnes and signs a name nobody in this city had ever heard him use.
Also about this, in other words
- A Candid Letter Stalls Divorce
A husband’s bid for divorce hits a snag in Judge Shackleford’s court after his wife’s letter reveals marital incompatibility.
- An Etiquette Dispute Over a Business Letter
A Walla Walla man takes deep offense at the formal address used in a professional letter to his wife, revealing the rigid social anxieties of the era.
- The Thresher's Letter
A moving sketch of two young brothers working the wheat fields of Yakima, finding connection to home through a pressed pansy.
- The ‘Loving’ Letter That Ended a Marriage
Clara B. Heaton wins a default divorce after testifying that James Heaton threatened to blow her up with dynamite—then submits his own angry letter as proof.
- The Count's Obscene Mail Scandal
A self-styled Count faces trial in Tacoma for allegedly mailing obscene letters, despite his wife's legal campaign to free him.
- The $10 Letter That Wasn't Meant to Be Read
A Democratic congressional hopeful solicits a Republican postmaster for $10—using party paper, an insurance-company envelope, and a paper trail that ends up at the Post-Intelligencer.
- The Typographer's Lament: A Plea for Better Penmanship
A frustrated newspaper printer turns to verse to protest the illegible handwriting of contributors, whose scribbles make the typesetter’s life a living hell.
- The Patent Medicine Suicide Hoax
A supposed farewell note found on Yesler Wharf turns out to be a clever, cynical advertisement for a health elixir.