Research the archive
Narrow 25,688 newspaper stories by words, years, place, newspaper and subject. See when and where they ran, then download what you find.
Put a phrase in quotes ("rent strike") or leave a word out with a minus (strike -baseball). Old scans misspell names, so when little is found, near-spellings are offered.
Refine
Show the numbers
| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1860 | 1 |
| 1861 | 1 |
| 1872 | 4 |
| 1876 | 2 |
| 1882 | 1 |
| 1883 | 1 |
| 1885 | 1 |
| 1886 | 1 |
| 1889 | 3 |
| 1891 | 1 |
| 1892 | 1 |
| 1893 | 1 |
| 1895 | 2 |
| 1899 | 6 |
| 1904 | 6 |
| 1905 | 1 |
| 1909 | 2 |
35 stories matching pollut
- The Cedar River Siege: How a Power Mogul Tried to Steal Seattle’s Water
Seattle Star exposes the Snoqualmie Falls Power Company’s dirty game: using fake environmental panic to block municipal water rights and crush competition.
- The Fight to Protect Seattle’s Tap Water
A century ago, city engineers were already sounding the alarm about protecting the Cedar River watershed from industrial development and pollution to ensure a clean supply for a growing city.
- A Grand Jury’s Grim Look at Seattle’s Jail
A scathing report from 1888 slams local conditions for youth and calls for urgent reform, while calling out industrial pollution in the Cedar River.
- Seattle's 1895 Warning: Secure Cedar River Water Before Private Speculators Do
City Engineer R. H. Thomson says Seattle's overworked pumps cannot survive another summer and urges the city to buy the Cedar River watershed, dams and reservoir sites while it still can.
- Tacoma’s Poisoned Water
A local newspaper argues that the city's reliance on the polluted Clover Creek for drinking water is driving typhoid fever and threatening the lives of its residents.
- The Unfiltered Reality of Tacoma’s Water
An exposé reveals that the city's water supply flume runs through backyards and cesspools, gathering filth before reaching the tap.
- The 'Pitiful Hedizzened Hurlots': Seattle's Moral Panic Over the Steamship Brothels
In September 1872, a furious editorial in the *Seattle Daily Intelligencer* condemned the floating red-light districts on Puget Sound, accusing steamship lines of carrying 'pollution and death' to every port while politicians looked away.
- The Neighborhood Siege on Commercial Street
A century and a half ago, a massive petition of Seattle residents demanded the city ‘cleanse’ a house of ‘contagious pollution,’ setting a precedent for civic moral panics.
- City Council Clashes Over Polluted Water Reports
A health officer's report alleging city water contamination sparks a heated confrontation with a city commissioner.
- The Day the City Council Abandoned Seattle for Cedar Lake
In a bizarre twist of municipal governance, Mayor Curry, Comptroller Parry, and Engineer Thompson fled downtown to inspect water pollution at Frankson’s Cedar Lake, leaving the city’s daily operations in limbo.
- The Power Struggle for Seattle’s Future
As the city council investigates the Cedar River water rights dispute, a fierce corporate war erupts between the Snoqualmie Falls Power Company and the Union Electric Company, threatening to monopolize the region's energy supply.
- The Vigilantes' Ghost: Seattle's Dark Secret in Two Maple Trees
A poem published in the *Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer* reveals the city’s foundational myth: that its current 'peaceable' order was bought with the blood of six men hanged by a secret committee when the law failed to act.
- The Editor Who Sold His Paper to a Brothel Keeper
A scathing letter in the Puget Sound Dispatch exposes the corrupt alliance between Seattle’s Republican party and its most notorious vice kingpins, asking: 'What of that newspaper publisher... who for a palm share in the wages of prostitution gives his aid and influence?'
- The Pony Express Ends: Lincoln Wins, But the South Sees War
As the Pony Express delivers the shocking news of Abraham Lincoln’s election to a nervous Sacramento, Olympia residents mark local weddings and watch their market prices hold steady.
- Mayor Accused of Silencing Health Official Over Water Safety
Physicians in Pierce County call a meeting at the Tacoma Hotel, suspecting the Mayor fired the bacteriologist to hide pollution data.
- The City Council's Yellow Flag Fiasco
When Seattle officials passed a health ordinance to curb contagion, they refused to apply it to a notorious local brothel, sparking a public outcry against political hypocrisy.
- The Hotelkeeper Who Jumped to Escape Justice
A Port Gamble innkeeper’s dramatic leap from a second-story window reveals the gritty reality of justice in 1876 Seattle.
- Seattle’s First Battle for Clean Air
The city council passes a landmark ordinance to curb factory smoke, signaling a crackdown on the industrial polluters that have long choked the downtown air.
- The Sewer Under Beacon Hill
After quicksand, floods and a costly detour, Seattle’s South Tunnel is weeks from completion—and somehow still inside its $100,000 budget.
- Typhoid Outbreak Traced to Wapato Creek Dairies
City and state health officials issue urgent sanitation ultimatum to local dairymen after tracing typhoid fever cases to contaminated creek water.
- Poisoned Milk Plot in Spangle
A jeweler's family in Spangle narrowly escaped death after their cow was fed poison in a malicious act of sabotage.
- The Typhoid Traps of Third and Jackson
Public health investigators uncover a squalid, overcrowded lodging house where laborers were left to suffer in squalor, exposing the dark underside of Seattle's rapid expansion.
- The Great Garbage Debate: Seattle’s Early Fight for Sanitation
While the city council opted for a cheap, pollutive scow system to dump waste into the Sound, local doctors warned that the tides would only bring the filth right back to Seattle’s doorsteps.
- The Sawdust Menace: A 19th Century Struggle for Our Rivers
Decades before modern environmentalism, Chehalis locals were already fighting the devastating impact of industrial waste on their salmon and trout streams.
- The Hidden Plague of Tacoma
As cases of typhoid fever surge, the local press questions the safety of the city's aging water infrastructure.
Also about this, in other words
- Tacoma’s Tent Caterpillar Plague
A horticultural emergency prompts city officials to order residents to prune or burn infested branches as an invasive pest threatens to strip the city’s trees.
- An Army of Caterpillars Invades the North End
Thousands of hungry pests swarm Tacoma’s trees, leaving residents fearful for the city’s greenery.
- The Plague of Caterpillars on the North Side
A swarm of voracious insects descends upon Seattle's northern outskirts, stripping gardens and trees bare while defying all attempts at extermination.
- A Backyard Chemistry Disaster
An attempt to follow official advice for killing aphids leads to a dangerous explosion in a Tacoma garden.
- The Bachelor Plague: A Warning to Women Considering Washington Territory
A satirical column in the Waterville Empire warns Eastern women that the territory is overrun with 'horrid bachelors,' urging them to come anyway for the climate and soil.
- Stopping the Smut Explosions
Innovation in threshing technology saved Washington farmers from fire and financial ruin.
- Tacoma’s 'Pig in a Poke' Water Deal
Taxpayers revolt against a dubious multi-million dollar municipal purchase of water and electric assets.
- The Porpoise and the Cow: A Nautical Disaster in Tacoma
A schooner, a one-eyed cow, and a cargo-hoisting gone horribly wrong—a day on the Tacoma waterfront that ended in broken bunks and a damp bovine.