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153 stories matching overflow
- Securing the Creeks Before the Spring Thaw
Taxpayers rally to prevent the overflow of Mill and Yellowhawk creeks with a joint city-county funding appeal.
- Calispel Votes Again to Hold Back the Water
Property owners back a diking district 31 to 2, setting up a court survey and a railroad partnership to protect lowland farms from overflow.
- Before the Next High Tide
An 1878 editorial warns that hauling gravel and pulling drift logs off the Point Hudson spit has already helped flood Port Townsend twice—and calls for an ordinance before the winter storms return.
- A Fireman Died in a Flood-Swollen Culvert. Now His Widow Wants the Railroad to Pay.
E. G. Cole left a widow and three daughters, including six-month-old twins. His estate is suing the Oregon Improvement Company for $12,480, alleging the company ran a train through a flooded, defective roadbed.
- A Jury Settles the Water for Calispell
Landowners in the Calispell bottoms are awarded damages, clearing the way for a diking district to reclaim about 100 acres from the annual overflow.
- The 1895 Plan to Straighten the Sammamish River
A petition from H. K. Kelsey and forty others asked King County to drain, deepen and straighten Squak Slough, reclaiming 3,000 acres of overflowed land.
- The Great Strawberry Heist: A Town’s Sweetest Mystery
When a local dignitary donated an overflowing bucket of cherries and strawberries to the Snohomish newspaper office, they vanished by nightfall—leaving behind only gratitude and a very full belly.
- The Great Thaw: Mountain Snows Turn Every River Into a Rampage
An unusually cool spring held a winter's worth of snow until a few hot days sent it all down at once, flooding the Skagit, Cowlitz and Columbia, drowning farmland and putting Portland under water.
- The Hoarding of Wealth in 1885 Seattle
While storehouses and granaries overflow, a letter to the editor questions why the economy stays starved of currency.
- The Bold Dream to Remake Seattle's Waterways
In 1880, a group of prominent citizens proposed a canal between Lake Union and Puget Sound to drain Lake Washington, reclaim farmland, and create an industrial powerhouse.
- Engineering a Solution for Hagerty Creek
The City of Snohomish seeks to tame a flooding creek by tunneling through a hill at the foot of Union Avenue.
- Plumbing Failure Floods State Capitol
A clogged flush tank at the Olympia capitol caused hundreds of dollars in damage to government records.
- The Anti-Catholic Crusade That Filled a Seattle Hall
In 1895, an overflow crowd packed a Masonic hall on Pike Street to hear the American Protective Association promise a nativist 'second grand army' against the Catholic Church.
- Calispel Valley Ranchers Move to Dike Out the Pend Oreille
A petition for a new diking district would protect 11,000 acres from annual floods—and add thousands to Stevens County's tax rolls.
- Yakima Jail Overflowing with 'Drunk and Disorderlies'
A frustrated prisoner asks a pointed question as the city lock-up fills up with residents.
- Proposed Tunnel to Save Kent Valley Farms
A Seattle engineer proposes a tunnel project to drain the White River valley to protect agricultural lands from seasonal flooding.
- The Dream of the La Grande Marsh Colony
Developers in the 1880s marketed a fertile Snohomish County marshland as an ideal site for a family colony, selling the promise of self-sufficiency just four miles from town.
- The Suspicious Sunnyside Blaze
A doctor's Ford car is reduced to ashes in Sunnyside while en route to Kennewick under mysterious circumstances.
- Western Washington’s Spring Floods
Heavy rains and rising rivers in the Skagit, Fraser, and Columbia valleys damage crops and farmland.
- The Speaker of Norway’s Storthing Visits Seattle
Viggo Ullmann, a leader of the Norwegian Liberal Party, brings his campaign for national independence to a packed hall in Seattle.
- The Berry Boom Hits the Rails
Kennewick's strawberry harvest is so bountiful that the town's depot platforms are overflowing and train schedules are being held to keep up with the demand.
- The Fight for Clean Water in Parkland
City officials take aim at sanitation hazards at Parkland College that have been contaminating the local water supply.
- The East Side Sewer Crisis
Stagnant sewage on the tide flats threatens to shutter East Side factories, sparking a desperate plea for infrastructure relief.
- The Puyallup Fair Draws 20,000 School Children
A record-breaking year sees the fairgrounds overflowing with agricultural exhibits and local livestock.
- Valley Ranchers Organize to Dike the Pend Oreille: A $40,000 Flood Control District Proposed
About 25 landowners met at Gifford's ranch to sign a petition for a diking district covering nearly 10,000 acres, aiming to protect their fields from the river's annual overflow.
Also about this, in other words
- The Sunnyside Canal's New Problem Was Too Much Water
Farmers who once feared the canal could never water the whole valley are now drowning in seepage — so a private company has been chartered to drain the land before the state district can get its paperwork done.