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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1862 | 1 |
| 1876 | 3 |
| 1877 | 2 |
| 1878 | 1 |
| 1882 | 2 |
| 1883 | 2 |
| 1889 | 1 |
| 1890 | 1 |
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30 stories matching richer
- The Great Seattle-Portland Population War
In 1882, Seattle editors launched a sharp, statistical campaign to prove their city was growing faster than its southern rival.
- Five Levels Down, Orient's First Thought Mine Hits a Wall of Gold
A sixty-foot stope averaging better than $100 a ton — and assays running to $800 — convinces the Stevens County camp that the deeper it digs, the richer the ground gets.
- The Growing Divide: A 1889 Look at Wealth Inequality
A century before modern debates on income disparity, a Seattle newspaper reflected on a New York attorney's grim statistics concerning the extreme concentration of American wealth.
- Seattle's Bid to Be the Liverpool of America
In 1895, boosters imagined a Lake Washington ship canal turning Puget Sound into a freshwater harbor for world commerce, coal trade, and naval power.
- The Man Who Told James J. Hill There Would Be Two Railroads
F. A. Blackwell came west from Pennsylvania with cash, timber sense and nerve — now his Pend Oreille line is racing the Great Northern to the Canadian border.
- The Gold Rush That Wasn't: How Seattle’s Prospectors Fooled the Town
In May 1877, a wave of excitement swept through Seattle over reports of rich gold deposits on the Nootsack River. But when the 'prospectors' finally arrived with their claims, it turned out to be an elaborate confidence trick designed to drain the town's cash reserves.
- The Spokane 'Monte Cristo' Swindles the City
A charismatic stranger dazzled Spokane with tales of gold and a lavish lifestyle, only to leave town with $10,000 in worthless checks.
- The Globe-Trotter, the Elks, and the $5,000 Wager
A Boston telegram called Paul Jones a fake. Seattle's own reporting found a Harvard man circling the world on a wager — and turning a paper suit into a sellout lecture.
- The Mine That Wasn’t? A Captain Denies a Half-Million-Dollar Gold Swindle
An English capitalist’s suit against Alaska millionaires turned a Port Townsend sailing into a Pacific Coast sensation, with charges of swapped ore, gold-soaked drill cores, and a forceful denial from Capt. James Carroll.
- A Murder Trial Ends in Tears and a Whispered Verdict
After eighteen months in a felon's cell and a second trial, William Wilcox walks free — and a courtroom erupts.
- The Treasury Dept. Helps a Seattle Woman Recover Buried Riches
After her nephew buried $150 in greenbacks near Gilman five years ago, the money decayed into an unrecognizable mass. Local bankers and federal experts worked together to save her investment.
- The Original Miners: How Native Americans Discovered the Metaline's Lead Riches
Long before white prospectors staked claims, Indigenous people mined lead in the Metaline region to make bullets and slugs—and their ancient workings still dot the landscape.
- The Tax Commissioner Who Couldn't Pick a Boss
J. E. Frost draws a state salary in Olympia while weighing a richer offer from the Northern Pacific — and the legislature is about to rewrite the railroad tax laws he advises on.
- The Unawakened Giant: Why Washington Territory Is the Next California
A sweeping editorial in the *Diligent Intelligencer* argues that railroads are about to unlock the 'inland basin' of Eastern Washington, transforming it from a feared desert into an agricultural empire rivaling the Golden State.
- The Summer the Smoke Saved the Harvest
With rainfall a third of normal and crops burning in the fields, Seattle's paper made the case that the season's suffocating pall of forest-fire smoke had been the region's salvation.
- The Oyster King’s Blueprint: How Connecticut’s ‘Submarine Landlords’ Could Save Washington’s Economy
A visiting shellfish commissioner reveals that state-owned oyster beds create wealthier workers and richer treasuries—a radical land reform idea taking root in Aberdeen.
- The Wooden Walls of Puget Sound
A survey of the booming fleet of vessels built in Washington Territory in 1877, and why the local economy was missing out on the profits of its own timber.
- The Morning Glory Fizzle
A group of Vancouver Southern sympathizers attempted to print a campaign paper in Portland, only to have their equipment and their vanity locked away in a safe they couldn't open.
- The Unbuilt Railroad That Was Meant to Change Seattle Forever
In 1882, Seattle business leaders were desperate for a direct rail connection to Walla Walla, believing their city’s future prosperity hinged on punching a line through the Snoqualmie Pass.
- The Fight Over the Road Through the Cascades
A state wagon-road bill sets Cascade Pass against Slate Creek, with mining claims, Lake Chelan freight and a $33,000 price tag hanging in the balance.
- A Gold Rush Above the Snow Line
A Spokane traveler reports from the new Methow Valley mining camps, where promoters are laying out towns, charging $3.50 a day for trail work, and warning poor men to stay away until the snow melts.
- A Mining Boom Bites at the Metalines
New concentrators, a wagon road, a rich strike and a $1.5 million company put Newport at the center of a swelling lead-and-silver rush.
- A City Grain Buyer Says the Farmers Are Being Robbed — and That San Francisco Is Stealing Washington's Wheat
After a sweep through the Inland Empire, Seattle wheat man C. G. Austin reports a 24-million-bushel crop tributary to the Sound selling at a ruinous 25 to 30 cents a bushel, with bankers and merchants holding the grain and growers taking whatever they are offered. Worse, he says, San Francisco merchants blend Washington wheat into 'California wheat' and pocket an extra 8 cents a hundredweight for the reputation.
- The Library Was Not a Luxury
An 1895 editorial made the case that a free public library was civic infrastructure, not charity—and that starving it of funds betrayed the city's future.
- A Miner's Pockets Full of Gold Nuggets — and a Placer Strike 40 Miles From Town
A Spokane Falls businessman bound for the Cœur d'Alene mines never got there, but came back with nuggets and gold-crusted quartz from a richer claim far nearer home.
Also about this, in other words
- Labor Editors Take Aim at Corporate Influence in the Senate
An influential labor paper rejects the idea that wealth equals character, backing a populist judge for the U.S. Senate.
- The Bishop and the Golden Calf
A fiery editorial critique of Bishop Newman’s defense of vast wealth accumulation and its impact on the laboring classes.
- The Short, Lavish Reign of a Newsboy King
After finding a purse filled with gold and bills on a Seattle street, a young newsboy went on a spending spree that briefly transformed him into the wealthiest, most generous kid in the neighborhood.
- Wealthy Miner Found Stupor-Struck in Seattle Lodging
After arriving from the North with $10,000, a miner is found penniless and in a stupor; his hosts are arrested for robbery.
- The Curse of the Golden Calf: Seattle’s Economic Anxiety in 1877
As banks tightened their grip on local capital, a Seattle editor warned that hoarding wealth—rather than investing in local industry and homes—was a dangerous path to ruin.
- The Precarious Wealth of a Marcus Bachelor
A wealthy settler in the Colville Valley suffers a public health scare, highlighting the risks of frontier isolation and the burden of managing an estate.
- The Child Who Built Everett’s Prosperity
A haunting, fictionalized account of the daily drudgery faced by child laborers in the early 20th century.
- The Wealthy Tramp of the Waterfront
A disheveled rancher found sleeping on the Seattle waterfront was revealed to be carrying a small fortune, catching local police and confidence men by surprise.