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51 stories matching mode
- The Mayor's Power to Fire: Seattle's Removed Police Commissioners Fight for Their Jobs
J. G. Niggle and E. G. Cheasty argue that Mayor Byron Phelps removed them without notice or hearing—and that the city charter requires cause, not whim.
- The Great Tree Planting Contest: Who Knows How to Grow a Forest in Seattle?
A local committee has rejected the first round of submissions for a $150 prize on orchard design, declaring them insufficient. Now, they are asking the public to try again with a more rigorous plan for planting 30 acres of fruit trees.
- The Campaign to Purge Seattle’s Chinatown
In 1885, as anti-Chinese sentiment surged across the Pacific Northwest, a Seattle city official led a raid on the city's Chinatown, marking an early, aggressive move in the movement to drive the Chinese community out of the city.
- The Senate Ratifies the Treaties That Remade the Northwest
Ratified in 1859, the 1855 treaties with tribes across Oregon and Washington promised annuities, schools and mills while ceding millions of acres to settlement.
- The Skagit Farm Courtroom Battle
A landmark inheritance case hinged on the validity of an 1880s marriage between a white settler and a Swinomish woman.
- The City’s Legal Train Wreck
A ruling against Tacoma’s property tax scheme for street improvements threatens to bankrupt local progress, leaving the city in a legislative stalemate.
- The Battle for Kenney Street
A dispute over a blocked street in the Williams addition marks the first legal test of new laws allowing the city to condemn land for public use.
- The Political Campaign Against Chinese Labor in 1886
A local representative’s fiery defense of anti-Chinese exclusionary policies, detailing the economic anxieties that gripped Seattle workers during the late 19th century.
- The Suffragist in the Hall: How One Woman’s Plea Shook Washington’s Constitutional Convention
In the sweltering heat of 1878, a delegation from Seattle petitioned the territorial convention for women's voting rights. Mrs. Dunaway was invited to speak, delivering an eloquent appeal that momentarily softened the hearts of the 'sage' delegates before the vote closed.
- Rain Turns Early Seattle's Front Street to Mud
When heavy rains turned downtown thoroughfares into impassable quagmires, residents demanded better engineering than the temporary, 'penny-wise' patch jobs of the 1870s.
- The People vs. The Senators: Washington’s Bold Demand for Direct Democracy
In a rare moment of unity, the state legislature sends a powerful message to Congress: stop letting politicians pick your senators. It’s time for the people to vote.
- The Strange Fate of a Goldendale Defendant
A legal dispute takes a turn when two attorneys realize their client paid them in horses, which he then traded away.
- The Business of Mourning in the Civil War
As the casualty lists from the front lines grew, the private industry of embalming rose to meet a grim public need in Olympia and across the nation.
- The Idaho Capital Plot
Delegates from Lewiston arrive in Walla Walla with a desperate scheme to slice up territories and move the capital.
- City Council Targets 'Disorderly' Tenements
A new ordinance aims to clear out homes deemed a public nuisance based on the 'customs and habits' of residents.
- The Safety of City Lights
A San Francisco electrician tours Seattle's growing network of lights and warns that competition among workers leads to dangerous, sloppy wiring.
- The Territory's Legislative Snake
A scathing critique from 1877 exposes the 'headless and tailless' chaos of newly minted Washington tax laws, exposing a system designed to strip residents of their property through administrative incompetence.
- The Pastor, the Circular, and the Hung Jury
For three days a Seattle courtroom heard accusations of adultery, an illegitimate son, and a pastor’s libelous circular. At 12:35 a.m., the jury was still deadlocked.
- The Violent Expulsion of a Black Resident from Olympia
A white resident publicly recounts his role in forcing a Black man out of town, illustrating the overt racism prevalent in the territory during the Civil War era.
- The Unawakened Giant: Why Washington Territory Is the Next California
A sweeping editorial in the *Diligent Intelligencer* argues that railroads are about to unlock the 'inland basin' of Eastern Washington, transforming it from a feared desert into an agricultural empire rivaling the Golden State.
- The Postal War: How Snohomish’s Star Exposed Seattle’s Corrupt Postmaster
In June 1877, the editor of the *Snohomish Star* launched a blistering public attack on the Seattle post office, alleging that political cronyism and negligence were deliberately delaying his paper to protect local rivals.
- The Wealth of the Nation Trapped in the Vaults
A century and a half ago, President Grover Cleveland grappled with a modern-sounding crisis: federal budget surpluses causing economic panic, skyrocketing costs for common goods, and the crushing weight of a tariff system on working families.
- The City Council's Expensive Do-Over
After the Supreme Court tossed out a faulty assessment, the City of Seattle passes an emergency ordinance to squeeze residents for a new payment on a completed sewer project.
- The Skagit County Sheriff’s 'First Class' Hotel
Newly formed Skagit County lacks a proper jail, forcing the sheriff to board inmates at local hotels at public expense.
- When Seattle's Mayor Took on Poverty: The 1895 Charity Bureau Meeting
At the Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Byron Phelps and local leaders discussed unemployment, aid to families, and the growing demand for relief during a depression year.