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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1885 | 1 |
| 1889 | 1 |
| 1892 | 2 |
| 1893 | 2 |
| 1894 | 7 |
| 1895 | 4 |
| 1903 | 2 |
| 1909 | 2 |
| 1912 | 1 |
| 1915 | 1 |
23 stories matching oral
- The Elderberry Wine Defense: How a Contested Election Collapsed in Laughter
Populists dropped their challenge to Commissioner Nickerson, but testimony in the sheriff and coroner contests turned up sailors voting under protest and a lunch bag of elderberry wine at a Franklin polling place.
- The Silence at the Vancouver Institution
A Walla Walla father challenges the state’s neglect of oral education methods for deaf children.
- She Took the Bar Exam Beside Her Husband — and Became Whitman County's First Woman Lawyer
W. H. Harvey and his wife, E. M. Harvey, of Pullman, pass their oral examinations in Colfax, making Mrs. Harvey the first woman admitted to practice law in Whitman County.
- A Home, Not an Institution, for Deaf Children
A Hartford oralist writes to Joseph L. Miller about his plan to open a small school in Walla Walla where deaf children would learn to speak.
- A One-Man Supreme Court: Olympia Weighs 500 Cases and 16-Hour Reading Days
A legislative investigation hears that Washington’s high court has misstated facts and been crushed by its workload — with one justice sometimes reading an entire case alone.
- Seattle's Fire Chief Vanished Before His Day in Court
A.B. Hunt disappeared after telling friends he was off to Tacoma for trial; the city removed him, named Alexander Allen Jr. chief, and left a mystery that only deepened when his father was summoned to prove his birth.
- Three Years to Bring Maggie Home
After three years of court fights, Kate Lovell walked out of a Seattle institution with the daughter it had refused to release.
- The Obsession of George Jarvis
A Seattle man is arrested for a campaign of harassment against two local dressmakers, leaving their neighbors and the city’s socialites reeling.
- The French Laundry Showdown
A bitter labor dispute over an engineer's credentials at the French Laundry reveals the intense struggle for union recognition in 1912 Everett.
- The $2 Million School-Land Grab
A federal land inspector was accused of rushing a hearing to help speculators claim Tacoma's School Section 16—land the state said was worth $2 million.
- The Squatter’s Shack on the Waterfront
A railroad company wins its eviction battle against a man living on a harbor spit.
- The Unpaid Wages of a Seattle Pioneer
A Chinese house servant sues the estate of one of the city's most famous pioneers, Henry L. Yesler, for years of back wages.
- The Battle Over Seattle’s History
Pioneer C. B. Bagley takes to the pages of the P-I to correct misstatements about the city's early development and street history.
- The Preacher, the Presiding Elder, and the Typewritten Screed
An obscure minister accuses a Methodist leader of seduction and embezzlement, setting off a Seattle church scandal and a criminal-libel warrant.
- An Ambassador for the Northwest: Judge Lewis Returns from the East
A Seattle judge’s 1885 journey reveals a Pacific Northwest eager to prove itself to the skeptical East, complete with butter-churning Quakers and coal-scam lawsuits.
- Don't Tear Down the Mineral Palace
A Seattle booster exhibit built to dazzle Great Northern investors sits empty after the Panic of 1893 — and a reader begs the city not to wreck the one thing that proves Puget Sound is worth their money.
- Tacoma’s Whitewash That Wasn’t
A public-works president accuses a newly appointed superintendent of dishonesty—then refuses to put the charges in writing.
- A Receiver Wants to Cut Streetcar Wages; a Judge Says Not Below $2 a Day
The Seattle Consolidated Railway, in receivership, asks the federal court to trim motormen's and conductors' pay from 20 to 17½ cents an hour.
- The landlord's dilemma when the building burns
Legal experts debate whether tenants are entitled to a rent refund when their rented rooms are destroyed by fire mid-month.
- Rewriting the Pig War
Colonel Granville O. Haller disputes a revisionist history of the 1859 San Juan Island standoff.
- The Ballot Box Was Too Full in Franklin
Populists brought witnesses to court to show that votes in Franklin precinct were pushed, shaken and crammed into an overflowing box—irregularity, they argued, even if not outright fraud.
- The River Was Losing to the Railroad, and the Engineers Knew It
A federal board in Washington, D.C. has turned thumbs down on improving the Pend Oreille for navigation — and Newport has three weeks to argue otherwise.
- Students Hustle for High Culture
Kennewick pupils raise significant funds for fine art reproductions through school-wide competition and performances.
Also about this, in other words
- The Great Table Etiquette Debate
An editorial scrap between the Intelligencer and the Post-Intelligencer over whether eating with a knife is a sign of 'vulgar' breeding.
- The Chicken-Head Oath Was Not Used in This Seattle Courtroom
Chin Chew was acquitted of beating and robbing a fellow Chinese laborer, but the case is remembered for a judge's refusal to repeat a rival jurist's 'chicken oath' experiment.
- The Dentist and the Alleged Blackmailer
A patient sues her dentist for malpractice, while he claims she is a pawn in a sophisticated extortion scheme involving drug habits and family wealth.
- The Dentist and the Pistol: A Tacoma Domestic Violence Crisis
When a local dentist was arrested for an armed assault on his wife, the incident sent shockwaves through the emerging city of Tacoma.
- A Literal Piece of Evidence
A Tacoma man presented his own severed nose to the police court following a brawl over a woman.
- The Dentist and the Cat
After a cruel beating left a local cat unable to feed itself, a sympathetic neighborhood dentist crafted a set of false teeth to save the animal.
- The Deaf Dodge
A local drunkard tries to outsmart a judge by faking deafness, only to be tripped up by the prospect of a free drink.
- The 'Chicken Oath' in Municipal Court
To ensure truthful testimony, a Seattle courtroom turns to a traditional Chinese oath involving the decapitation of a rooster.