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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 3 |
| 1858 | 2 |
| 1859 | 1 |
| 1860 | 1 |
| 1861 | 2 |
| 1862 | 2 |
| 1871 | 1 |
| 1872 | 5 |
| 1876 | 29 |
| 1877 | 25 |
| 1878 | 16 |
| 1879 | 2 |
| 1880 | 8 |
| 1882 | 5 |
| 1883 | 24 |
| 1884 | 16 |
| 1885 | 29 |
| 1886 | 21 |
| 1887 | 9 |
| 1888 | 21 |
| 1889 | 46 |
| 1890 | 8 |
| 1891 | 40 |
| 1892 | 83 |
| 1893 | 98 |
| 1894 | 69 |
| 1895 | 91 |
| 1897 | 2 |
| 1898 | 16 |
| 1899 | 18 |
| 1900 | 5 |
| 1902 | 1 |
| 1903 | 43 |
| 1904 | 20 |
| 1905 | 3 |
| 1908 | 23 |
| 1909 | 41 |
| 1910 | 6 |
| 1911 | 5 |
| 1912 | 3 |
| 1914 | 15 |
| 1915 | 9 |
| 1916 | 24 |
| 1917 | 8 |
| 1922 | 2 |
| 1923 | 5 |
| 1924 | 6 |
912 stories matching origin
- Newport's Road Race for the Calispel Valley Trade
As rival towns lobbied for a $30,000 state road, Newport banked on a new railroad and steamboats to secure the rich valley's business.
- The Forgotten Origins of the Pacific Mail Line
How an obscure postmaster from Astoria helped launch the steamship route that fed the California Gold Rush.
- The Great Sheep War: Seattle’s Political Flocks and the Independent Goats
A satirical letter to the editor uses a bizarre allegory of sheep herds and wild goats to critique Seattle's political parties, corporate wolves, and the emerging independence of women in public life.
- The Relocation of the University of Washington
City Hall votes to deed away the original downtown campus to the state, paving the way for the University to move to its modern home.
- The Ghost of Tacoma's Original Downtown
Before the railroad turned Tacoma into a boomtown, the city's future was fought over by competing pioneers and land speculators.
- Debating the Northern Railroad's Route to Puget Sound
As the Northern Pacific Railroad eyed a Portland terminus to maximize its land grants, a fierce editorial demands the company fulfill its promise to connect the Columbia River to Puget Sound or forfeit its territory.
- The Road Newport Was Promised—and the Colville Detour That Ate It
State Road No. 3 was supposed to run from Newport through Metaline and Northport to Orient. Instead, Newport’s share of the money went to surveys and improvements near Colville, leaving the lower river country with nothing but promises.
- Seattle’s Temple of Learning Rises Between Two Lakes
In 1895, contractors raced to finish a $200,000 campus between Union and Washington lakes—complete with copper finials, a gymnasium and a hillside observatory—before the September opening.
- The Palouse Professor Who Helped Rediscover Heredity
Before Mendel's laws were famous, an agriculturist at the Washington State Experiment Station stood alongside three European scientists as a co-discoverer of them — and proved the principle with velvet-chaffed wheat.
- The Navy's Giant Dry Dock Needed One More Appropriation
A $200,000 federal appropriation rescued the Port Orchard dry dock from a year's delay, a rare bit of good news for Puget Sound's naval future.
- The Lumbermen Who Worshipped a Black Cat
Seattle initiates into the Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo, a new fraternal society for lumbermen, complete with black robes, mock titles and a banquet.
- The Loophole in the Timber Claims
A federal court ruling clarifies that innocent buyers are protected even when the land they purchased was originally obtained through fraudulent timber claims.
- The Paper That Stood Between Jung Wing and Deportation
Arrested at a Point Roberts cannery for lacking a registration certificate, Jung Wing wins a month to prove he is the man named on a lost Portland certificate—or face deportation.
- The Letter That Asked: Is Olympia's Street-Tax Ordinance Even Legal?
A citizen signing himself 'Marius' argues that the city's method of charging property owners for street paving and grading violates due process — and warns that if the assessments collapse in court, every taxpayer in town will pay for it.
- A Bucket Brigade Saves the Barn, but the Gleichman Ranch House Is Gone
An early-evening blaze of unknown origin destroyed one of the finest houses on the Highlands Fruit Company ranch — a $4,000 loss that neighbors could only stand and watch.
- The Women Who Packed Washington Into a World's Fair
At the Olympia Hotel, local women joined two state commissioners to plan wood carvings, wildflowers, art and industry for Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition.
- Seattle’s Sewers Running Into a Budget Deficit
City Engineer R.H. Thomson warns that original appropriations are insufficient to complete critical sewer tunnel work, suggesting design modifications to save money.
- The State Moved the Line, and the Waterfront Went With It
Tide-land owners at Port Angeles say they filled in the harbor in good faith, paid their money, and then learned the state had redrawn the meander line to swallow the most valuable frontage — and that the attorney general now refuses to issue their deeds.
- A Jinxed Steamer Sold at Auction: The Henry Bailey's Bad Luck on the Skagit
After repeated sinkings in the Skagit River and a crew's libel suit, the steamer Henry Bailey went on the auction block at Seattle's Yesler dock—fetching a fraction of its original cost.
- The Bug Inspector Who Called Himself a Crank — and Warned That Japanese Oranges Could Wreck Washington's Orchards
A King County insect inspector accuses the state horticultural commissioner of botching a fumigation order, then warns that the scale insects riding in on imported Japanese oranges could become "a curse to one of Washington's greatest industries."
- A Missing Clause Stalls the Road Through the Cascades
Whatcom and Skagit expected a governor's commission and an early start. The enrolled bill in Olympia had lost its emergency clause, and the delay was already being blamed on the wrong people.
- The Ghost of a Phone Directory
A look back at White Bluffs' first phone book reveals a rapidly changing town where most original subscribers have vanished.
- The Snohomish Land Grab: How Original Owners Inflated Prices and Plotted in the Dark
A scathing review of the town's growth reveals a community divided by greed, where original plat owners are accused of hoarding land and manipulating records to squeeze newcomers out of the real estate boom.
- The Sheriff Who Wouldn't Shield the Strikers: A Labor Standoff in Newcastle
When a coal mine strike erupted in Newcastle, King County, Sheriff Cochrane refused to protect workers willing to cross the picket line, sparking a public confrontation with the mine superintendent and accusations of union intimidation.
- The Tale of Two Towns: A Battle for the Depot
As the railroad bypasses established settlements, a bitter conflict erupts between long-time residents and land speculators creating a brand-new town three miles away.
Also about this, in other words
- The Origin of Lynch Law
A local resident traces his ancestry to the infamous Irish namesake of America's most brutal form of vigilante justice.
- The Sermon of Science in Snohomish
A local lecture series bridges the gap between theology and natural history, framing evolution not as a conflict with the divine, but as the 'eternal reign of law.'
- From the 'Brink of the Pit' to the Pulpit
An immigrant's harrowing reflection on poverty, addiction, and spiritual rebirth in Port Manson, 1877.
- The Sermon that Shook a Seattle Congregation
A Seattle minister caused a sensation by preaching that biblical figures were of the Black race, citing historical and lineage arguments to his congregation.
- The Invisible Army Under the Microscope
A scientific lecture delivered in Snohomish contemplates the origins of life, the invisible world of bacteria, and the processes of decay.
- The Fire Chief’s Citizenship Scandal
A legal dismissal for the Seattle Fire Chief is thrown into doubt by conflicting sworn statements regarding his birthplace.
- A Father Returns from the Skagit to Claim His Own
A man arrives from the mining camps to marry the woman he fathered a child with, hoping to secure their future after she was jailed for an alleged act of desperation.
- The Invisible Milky Way in a Glass of Wine
A scientific lecture from 1878 explores the 'vital ether' and the microscopic life forces that drive fermentation.