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220 stories matching partial
- The Judge Who Warned Seattle Not to Sell Its Waterfront to a Canal Company
In 1894, Judge John J. McGilvra urged Congress to build the Lake Washington Ship Canal and warned that a private company's tideflat scheme would put tolls on the water and enrich speculators at public expense.
- The Armory Uprising: Seattle’s Battle for Public Transit
As the City Council prepares to vote on a controversial 40-year franchise for private street railways, citizens are mobilizing for a mass meeting at the Armory, demanding municipal ownership over corporate profit.
- Shipped Out by Force: The Sailor Who Wouldn't Sign
A Tacoma saloonkeeper lured three men to a vessel and kept them aboard against their will — now the seamen's union demands justice.
- The War on the Hop Louse in Puyallup
As growers struggle with a partial crop failure and a late season, local farmers debate the best scientific methods to save the region's hops.
- The City That Built Itself: Seattle’s 1876 Bet on Railroads and Real Estate
While Portland urges unity to secure a transcontinental line, Seattle’s council quietly reshapes the city’s physical landscape—lowering street grades and paving sidewalks—betting that infrastructure will drive the boom.
- Tragedy at Brush Prairie
After the long illness and death of his wife, a grieving man takes his own life in the room where she lay.
- Late Night Fire in Seattle Alley
A cottage between Pike and Union Streets was partially destroyed by fire, leaving the occupant to escape in his nightclothes.
- The Day the Kingston Died: A Steamship Collision and the Pilot’s Tale
Pilot Gatter recounts the terrifying moments when the steamer Glenogle collided with the passenger liner Kingston in Puget Sound, sending hundreds of feet of steel into the water.
- Seattle Rallies for the Franklin Mine’s Widows and Orphans
A relief fund grows by small donations, Black Seattleites organize their own drive, and officials seal the burning mine to starve the fire.
- The Eastern Oregon Burned at Percival’s Wharf
A repair crew’s paint store caught fire aboard the steamship Eastern Oregon, forcing men to jump forty feet to the mudflats and killing one cook; the blaze threatened Percival’s Wharf before rain helped firefighters.
- A Death-Trap Elevator in the Ball Block
An 18-year-old stenographer is critically injured after stepping into an open elevator shaft in downtown Tacoma, highlighting a pattern of mechanical neglect.
- The Hasheesh Defense: A Seattle Murder Trial Turns on a Drugged Cocktail
Harry Fraser was shot dead in a Northern Hotel saloon. The accused insisted the last thing he remembered was dice dancing on the table—and a drink that may have been laced with hasheesh.
- The Soldier Who Missed: Why Seattle Is Rooting for a Court-Martialed Hero
Sergeant Mason’s attempt to assassinate the man who killed Garfield has turned him from a mutineer into a martyr, sparking petitions and subscriptions across the Pacific Northwest.
- Death Reared Its Horrid Head: Steam Heater Explosion Kills Two Men in Downtown Seattle
A careless Japanese fireman left a boiler unattended at Second and Washington, causing a catastrophic explosion that killed one man instantly and mortally wounded another.
- The Kidnapping of the Kerr Child: A Battle for Custody and Morality
Charles L. Kerr and his new wife Viola Bell Thorndyke are accused of snatching an infant from a boat in Seattle, sparking a legal war over whether the child will be raised by her father or placed in a home deemed 'proper.'
- The Delegate Who Sold Seattle’s Future for Five Thousand Dollars
A scathing editorial in the Puget Sound Dispatch accuses Territorial Delegate George Freeman Willard of betraying Seattle’s interests—specifically the mud flats of Duwamish Bay—to secure his own political and financial gain, while simultaneously accepting bribes from rival railroad companies.
- The Invisible Killer in Your Milk: Seattle’s Health Officer Warns of Tuberculosis Cows
With consumption rates soaring and no dedicated veterinary inspector on staff, local officials admit the city is dangerously unprepared to stop diseased cattle from entering the food supply.
- The Trial of Judge Wickersham: A Tacoma Scandal Over Land, Lies, and 'Delirium'
In February 1889, the trial of a powerful federal judge in Tacoma exposed a web of political corruption, land fraud, and sexual scandal involving a young woman named Sadie Brantner.
- The Price of a City’s Future: Yesler’s Corner
A single landowner held Seattle’s urban development hostage, forcing the city council to choose between private property rights and the public good.
- The Final Voyage of the Wildwood
A steamship captain recounts the harrowing night his vessel burned to the water’s edge while docked at Olympia.
- The Mystery of the Buried Box
A construction crew in Lake City unearths a crate containing human remains, but by the time authorities arrive, the evidence has mysteriously vanished.
- The Coal Land Bust and the Stranded Laborers
Speculative collapse leaves workers in 'rookeries' as a corporate empire fractures.
- The Man Who Thought He Owned Seattle Died Chasing a Ghost Fortune
Henry Zechow spent nine years and a small army of lawyers trying to claim an uncle's imaginary empire—including a block of downtown Seattle—before his body turned up in the Fraser River.
- The 15,000-Word Plan to Build a Great Harbor on Seattle's Tide Flats
Virgil Bogue's report to King County proposes dredged slips, public docks, a union station and a jointly owned terminal railroad—if Seattle can sort out its tide-land titles.
- A Saw Cut Through His Brain. Seattle Doctors Watched Him Live.
Horatio Stetson's head was nearly split in two by a rip saw at a Seattle mill. Thirty-six hours later, he was talking, moving his limbs, and astonishing the physicians at Providence Hospital.
Also about this, in other words
- The Whole Thing
A heated clash between a city councilman and the acting mayor erupts over procedural power struggles.
- The Major’s Act of Personal Charity
When two families near Lake Washington faced absolute destitution, a city official chose to bypass bureaucratic red tape to offer help from his own pocket.
- The Fight Over Washington’s Missing School Sections
A Port Townsend case over “lieu lands” reaches a federal courtroom—and the title to hundreds of thousands of acres of school land.
- The Speaker’s Gavel Clash
In the Territorial House, a subtle procedural error leads to a public confrontation over how legislation is truly passed.
- The Fight Over Who Can Vote: Half-Breeds and the 1854 Legislature
A heated debate erupts in the Council over whether 'half-breeds' should be granted the elective franchise, revealing deep tensions over literacy, race, and colonial control.
- A Ticket Muddle for the Militia
A breakdown in communication leaves local militiamen feeling spurned at the ballpark gates.
- A Painful Pitcher's Dilemma
A boil on the arm of the star pitcher forces a last-minute scramble to find a replacement for a local amateur baseball game.
- An Eccentric Pioneer Found Alone and Helpless
After marrying a much younger woman and deeding away his property in a scandal that made local news, a reclusive tailor has been found paralyzed in his home.