Research the archive
Narrow 27,002 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.
Refine1 on
Show the numbers
| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1872 | 3 |
| 1876 | 24 |
| 1877 | 13 |
| 1878 | 13 |
| 1880 | 3 |
| 1882 | 1 |
| 1883 | 9 |
| 1884 | 3 |
| 1885 | 13 |
| 1886 | 4 |
| 1887 | 11 |
| 1888 | 9 |
| 1889 | 33 |
| 1891 | 13 |
| 1892 | 17 |
| 1893 | 26 |
| 1894 | 37 |
| 1895 | 65 |
| 1898 | 1 |
| 1899 | 12 |
| 1903 | 3 |
| 1904 | 1 |
| 1909 | 1 |
| 1910 | 4 |
| 1928 | 1 |
320 stories matching list
- The 'Habitual Drunkard' List
A proposed law would have forced Seattle barkeepers to publicly post a list of 'habitual drunkards' in their establishments, effectively blacklisting them from purchasing alcohol.
- The Price of Ownership: Seattle’s 1888 Delinquent Tax List
A sprawling registry of property owners, from the prominent to the 'Unknown,' failing to pay their dues during Seattle’s rapid expansion.
- The Great Seattle Tax Delinquency List
A vast, published ledger of delinquent property owners across Seattle's emerging neighborhoods exposes the precariousness of early land ownership.
- The Great Seattle Tax Auction of 1885
Before Seattle was a tech hub, it was a frontier town defined by rapid land speculation and the inevitable, painful process of tax foreclosures on the city's building blocks.
- The Delinquent Tax Rolls of Territorial Seattle
A haunting, granular list of property owners from 1875 and 1876 whose land was seized by the county, documenting the precarious nature of early Seattle ownership.
- The Prosecutor vs. the All-Male Jury
King County Prosecuting Attorney John R. Bradshaw demands the inclusion of women on jury lists, citing Washington Territory’s progressive suffrage laws.
- The Price of Building a City: 1877 Tax Defaults
As Seattle began to rapidly expand, a long list of property owners faced the loss of their land for unpaid taxes—revealing the precarious nature of early urban ownership.
- City Treasurer Decamps as Embezzlement Scandal Rocks Seattle
City Treasurer Adolph Krug has fled the city after an audit revealed a $20,000 deficit in his accounts.
- The City Collector’s Year-End Deadline
With the dawn of 1877 approaching, Seattle’s City Collector issues a final warning for delinquent taxpayers: pay up or lose your property.
- The Padded Guest List
A political movement to reform Seattle government gets caught red-handed inflating its support with the names of prominent citizens who never agreed to join.
- The Retired Colonel and the County Treasurer
A judge instructs a Grand Jury on whether a retired U.S. Army officer is legally permitted to hold the civilian office of King County Treasurer.
- The Real Estate Boom at Ronton Addition
Investors and business leaders scramble to buy into Seattle's rapid expansion.
- The Fake Canal Subscribers That Exposed a Seattle Newspaper War
In 1892 the Seattle Telegraph touted a popular subscription fund for the Lake Washington canal. The Post-Intelligencer called the list a confidence game built on the names of prominent citizens who never pledged a cent.
- The Great Seattle Canal Subscription Scandal
Prominent business leaders expose the local newspaper's fabricated list of wealthy donors to the Lake Washington ship canal project.
- An Affordable Dream: A 60x121 Foot Seattle Homestead
In 1877, a lot on Second Street—now the heart of Seattle's high-density urban core—was listed for sale as a private residential homestead.
- The Great Delinquent Tax Sale of 1888
A sweeping list of hundreds of 'Unknown Owners' and Seattle residents facing the auction block, revealing the precarious nature of early land speculation in the city.
- The Paper Trail That Went Up in Smoke
A King County tax assessor admitted that sworn property records were routinely burned, sparking a public outcry over local fiscal transparency.
- Federal Crackdown on Seattle Investment Scams
Federal authorities have blacklisted over fifty 'bond and investment' companies, including one in Seattle, prohibiting them from using the U.S. mail to conduct their business.
- The Canal Scandal: A Fabricated List of Prominent Backers
The Post-Intelligencer accuses the Seattle Telegraph of inventing a list of wealthy citizens and firms to support a private canal scheme.
- The Delinquent Tax Auction of 1878
A sweeping list of King County residents facing property forfeiture offers a window into the messy, frontier-era accumulation of Seattle real estate.
- Machinists Break the 'Open Shop' Blockade
A Seattle manufacturing firm finds their 'non-union' waiting list empty, forced to return to the union to keep their machinery running.
- The Seattle Land Boom’s Elite Sales Pitch
A 19th-century real estate advertisement lists Seattle’s power brokers as testimonials for a major development push near Madison Street.
- The 1878 Great Seattle Tax Auction
Before the skyline, there was the spreadsheet: A massive public auction of delinquent Seattle properties reveals the names, debts, and land-holdings of the city's pioneer founders.
- The Test of Conscience for Seattle’s Citizen Militia
Company E implements a rigorous questionnaire for recruits, aiming to filter out labor unionists and drinkers in an era of intense industrial unrest.
- The Real Estate Gentrifiers of 1889
A bold advertisement from the Post-Intelligencer lists the city’s power brokers as the first investors in a new development, explicitly using their status to sell land to the aspiring middle class.