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| Year | Stories |
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| 1854 | 1 |
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41 stories matching magic
- The Great Finley Coyote Hunt
When a rabid animal terrorized a local farmyard, the community mobilized with every firearm in their possession to track it down.
- Selling the 'Magic City': Fairhaven’s 1890 Development Boom
Boosterism was at its peak in Fairhaven as the Fairhaven Land Company touted steel furnaces, electric lights, and an inexhaustible connection to Skagit coal.
- The Magic Well of the Upper Skagit
An 1877 expedition pushes beyond the edge of known maps into the upper Skagit wilderness, encountering glowing tunnels, giant eagles, and the promise of a rugged agricultural frontier.
- The Miracle Doctor of Pine Street: How One Man’s ‘New Science’ Tamed Seattle’s Sickness
In the winter of 1890, Dr. J. Eugene Jordan’s 'Histogenetic' remedies were curing everything from scrofula to neuralgia, drawing testimonies from desperate locals who claimed conventional medicine had failed them.
- When the Skagit River Swallowed Mount Vernon: The Great Flood of 1894
A sudden heat wave melted mountain snow, sending rivers over their banks and putting whole towns underwater. In Mount Vernon, 300 men fought a losing battle against the rising Skagit.
- The Right to Vote in Washington Territory
Legislative debates heat up over the enfranchisement of Indigenous people in the mid-1850s.
- The Confidence Man’s Tears: How a Thief Fooled His Victim and the Court
In May 1877, Seattle confidence operator Dowd was granted a change of venue after moving his robbery victim to tears with a sob story about his destitute family. The District Attorney’s lenient stance sparked outrage among citizens who feared the law was too soft on crime.
- The Trial of a Puyallup Medicine Man
A traditional healer is fined by tribal authorities for practicing the 'tomanamus' rite, highlighting the collision between Indigenous traditions and colonial governance.
- The Magic City of Puget Sound
A booster’s portrait of 1890 Fairhaven, capturing a boom town fueled by speculation, deep-water access, and massive infrastructure projects.
- The Mayor’s Raid: Seattle’s Gambling Houses Shut Down in One Night
Mayor Hume and Police Chief Sullivan execute a council resolution, closing every known gaming parlor in the city. Was it moral reform or a power play against saloon owners?
- A Murder Trial Ends in Tears and a Whispered Verdict
After eighteen months in a felon's cell and a second trial, William Wilcox walks free — and a courtroom erupts.
- Deforestation and the Cost of Disaster
An editorial reflection on Everett’s regional flooding, linking unchecked industrial logging to the destruction of homes and property.
- Canoeing the Queets: Promise and Dispossession on the Olympic Peninsula
An 1892 travelogue celebrates homesteaders in the Queets River valley while arguing that Native hunters should be confined to the reservation.
- The Shell That Survived the Fire: A Seattle Man’s Close Call with a Civil War Artifact
An eccentric local resident discovers a live cannonball in his firewood, leading to a terrifying explosion that sends him tumbling down a hillside.
- The War for the Northwest: Railroad Moguls and the 'Rounders' of Portland
A bitter editorial from 1886 exposes the propaganda campaign waged by Northern Pacific railroad agents against Portland to secure terminal dominance for the Puget Sound region.
- The Mail-Order Marriage from Hell
A lonely rancher and a widow seeking companionship found only a farcical and bitter end to their long-distance romance.
- The Night Colfax Built an Opera House
A secret crew of Spokane masons raised the walls of a new theater in a single night—while the town's electric lights conveniently failed.
- The Boy Who Stole a Horse to Earn His Keep
A 17-year-old’s desperate attempt to fund his future ends in jail, sparking a local debate on juvenile justice and the harsh realities of poverty in early Seattle.
- The Temple of Thought: Snohomish Builds Its Own Athenaeum
A visiting orator declares the new Snohomish Athenaeum a 'temple of science, literature, and art,' rising from the wilderness to preserve the intellectual legacy of the Pacific Northwest.
- The Unraveling of Professor Barrimore
A traveling actor and self-proclaimed 'Professor' leaves a trail of abandoned wives and broken hearts across the Pacific Northwest.
- Two Miles Perched on the Lower Circle of a Rainbow
A Shelton legislator's private letter describing a steamer passage up Hammersley's Inlet becomes the best prose in the paper — a circle of prismatic color, starfish, glaciers and one awestruck captain.
- The Coal Miner Who Took the Capitol: Labor's 1911 Push in Olympia
Four hundred union delegates descended on the legislature, and a soft-spoken miner made the case for workmen's compensation — while the federation set its sights on women's eight-hour work and direct legislation.
- The Buried Gold of Dungeness and the Woman Ansel White Left Behind
Neighbors near Dungeness take up divining rods and dig out stumps hunting a dead man's fortune — and turn up instead the fifty-year-old story of the woman he ruined.
- The Orient Expressed: A Vision for Walla Walla Wheat
Prominent Portland booster Colonel Henry Dosch tours Walla Walla, urging local millers to modernize and pivot toward the Japanese market.
- The Apprentice Who Chose Grime Over Gold
In 1872 Seattle, a young man defies his parents' expectations by rejecting his inheritance to work in a boiler shop—and finds his own path to dignity.
Also about this, in other words
- The Cosmic Illusion at the Seattle Theatre
A scientific lecture turned spectacular, the 'Urania' show brings the moon and the stars to downtown Seattle through the magic of electricity and stagecraft.
- A Free Vaudeville Show Was Meant to Fill the Madison Street Cars
Stockholders in the Madison Street cable road hired a company of performers for nightly free shows at the lake pavilion, hoping the crowds would ride the line.
- The Persistent Business of Superstition
An editorial from 1877 examines why, despite the march of progress and the printing press, humanity remained obsessed with palmistry, spiritualism, and bad omens.
- The Great Egyptian Mystery: Living People Dissolve Into Air
Seattle audiences are treated to a 'London Sensation' at Yesler's Hall this week, featuring the world-renowned Mademoiselle Ilma and illusions that defy nature.
- Blood on the Card Table
A festive night at an O'Brien saloon ends in a horrific murder-suicide, leaving the community reeling and questions of old grudges swirling in the air.
- The Snake Oil Salesman of Seattle
A traveling 'magnetic' doctor promises miraculous cures for everything from asthma to consumption, setting up shop in 1889 Seattle.
- The Miracle of the Magnetized Spikes
A visiting electrical engineer stuns a packed Plymouth Congregational Church with a massive 5,000-candlepower lamp and a demonstration of magnetic force.
- Master Magician Laurant Dazzles Opera House Crowd
Laurant's performance of illusions and tricks at the Colfax opera house last night left the audience delighted, with comparisons to Hermann and Keller. The magician announces a new program for tonight.