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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1854 | 1 |
| 1876 | 8 |
| 1877 | 5 |
| 1878 | 1 |
| 1880 | 2 |
| 1883 | 3 |
| 1884 | 2 |
| 1885 | 2 |
| 1888 | 1 |
| 1889 | 4 |
| 1890 | 1 |
| 1891 | 2 |
| 1892 | 5 |
| 1893 | 2 |
| 1894 | 2 |
| 1895 | 6 |
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| 1909 | 2 |
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| 1917 | 1 |
56 stories matching richest
- The Rise and Lonely Fall of Spokane's Richest Man
Banker Anthony M. Cannon, who helped build Spokane from a cabin by the falls, dies broke and bereaved in a New York hotel — days after a secret second marriage made him tabloid prey.
- 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.
- A Valley of Perennial Wealth: The Excursion That Sold the Yakima Boom
A Puyallup delegation rides the Northern Pacific to North Yakima, tours the new Sunnyside Canal, and comes home convinced that irrigated sagebrush is the richest farmland in Washington.
- Tacoma's Richest Taxpayer Warns the Boodlers Are Eating the City
W. H. Fife, the city's largest taxpayer, says boodle government is eating his property alive—and warns Tacoma will fall behind Seattle if the machine is not driven out.
- The Hidden Gold of the Swamps
While pioneers once clung to the sandy prairies, Seattle's growing interest in 'tule lands'—the rich, reclaimed marshes of the Sound—reveals a new frontier for agricultural wealth.
- The Great Washington Land Grab
A federal investigation reveals how the Northern Pacific Railroad manipulated land office officials to claim 600,000 acres of prime territory in the Walla Walla Valley.
- A 1909 Newspaper Campaign Against Japanese Immigrants
A local labor newspaper warns that the white working class of Everett faces the same economic ruin as San Francisco due to competition from Japanese laborers.
- The Desert Blooms: Harnessing the Yakima River
A look at the massive Sunnyside Canal project promising to turn 75,000 acres of arid volcanic ash into a fruit-growing paradise.
- The Standard Oil Monopoly Comes to Tacoma
A secret land grab on the tide-flats marks the arrival of a massive industrial alliance between the Standard Oil company and transcontinental railroads.
- The Tacoma Land Grab: How Rich Men Tried to Steal Washington’s Senate Seat
In January 1891, Seattle’s press rallied behind incumbent Senator Watson Squire against a rival backed by Tacoma’s wealthy elite, exposing a bitter battle over whether the state would be ruled by its people or its land barons.
- Seattle’s First Chinese Theater Opens Its Doors
A new cultural space on Washington Street signals the growing presence and permanence of the Chinese community in the city.
- A $10,000 Railroad Check and a Whispering Campaign in Olympia
In 1895, Washington's legislature gathered to choose a U.S. senator, and the Seattle press heard that the Southern Pacific had put $10,000 behind one candidate.
- The Unfinished Ditch That Could Have Remade Seattle
An 1877 proposal to carve a channel between Lake Washington and the Sound highlights the ambitious—and forgotten—infrastructure dreams that once defined the city’s early development.
- The Funeral Pyre of Justice: Seattle Burns Its Gambling Den
As the Territorial Grand Jury demands a sewer system and a new jail, Sheriff Cochrane immolates tons of gambling paraphernalia on a public bonfire, while Judge Burke condemns saloon keepers to revoke their licenses.
- Britain Is Quietly Mapping Alaska's Border, Former Federal Attorney Warns
In a Seattle interview, C. S. Johnson says the British government is spending freely to survey disputed Alaska territory while the U.S. government stalls, and Alaskans fear losing valuable mining districts.
- The Tacoma Flower Clerk Who Woke Up an Heiress
Disowned at eighteen for marrying for love, a former Hotel Washington pantry keeper now running a Tacoma flower shop learns she has inherited ranches, gold mines and three hotels halfway around the world.
- From Mosquito Swamp to Golden Grain: The Taming of the Swinomish Flats
How a desolate, flood-prone wilderness was transformed by sheer human persistence into one of the most productive agricultural regions in the Washington Territory.
- Vigilantes of the Big Bottom: A Land War in Lewis County
When an aggressive claim jumper tried to terrorize a homesteader, twenty-five settlers organized a committee of order to run him out of the woods.
- Claiming the Puyallup Valley
A pioneer report from 1853 describes a rush of settlers onto rich timberland and the struggle to navigate the inaccessible river banks.
- The Town Where Horses Wore Wooden Shoes
La Conner grew slowly on a rocky knoll in the Skagit delta, diked its tidal flats, and shipped out hay by the ton—while its horses clumped through spring mud in wooden moccasins.
- The Gold Rush That Was Coming for the Colville Reservation
A Spokane prospector returns from the northern mineral belt with news of rich rock—and a prediction that the Indians will not long keep their land.
- Twenty a Day: The Gold Rush Pouring Into the Methow
A Spokane traveler back from the Slate Creek mines describes a road lined with families, prospectors, and warnings that there are already ten men for every job.
- Five Years of Waiting: The Silver Rush That Never Was
Spokane’s mining elite face a bureaucratic delay that threatens to stall fortunes built on the promise of the Spokane Indian Reservation's mineral wealth.
- The Struggle for the Swinomish Slough
While Washington Territory languished without federal infrastructure support, local steamboat operators were left to navigate a dangerous, shifting channel entirely on their own dime.
- Gold Fever on the Skagit: A Prospector's Report
Fresh from the gold fields, miners report that the Skagit region is sparkling with riches, promising to make skeptics take a backseat.
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 Hidden Wealth of Kittitas
A researcher discovers remarkably rich aluminum clay near Ellensburg, potentially transforming the region's industrial future.
- 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 Monopoly of Life and Labor
An editorial questioning the morality of the super-rich funding medical research while their monopolies squeeze the working class.
- Leavenworth's Nickel Boom: 'The Largest in the World'
A carload of ore from the Negro Creek district sets off visions of the greatest mining camp in the United States.
- The Millionaire’s Dilemma: A 1877 Critique on Wealth and Labor
An editorial from the Snohomish era takes on the 'purse-proud millionaires' of the Gilded Age, arguing that the true threat to the nation is the unchecked power of corporations and concentrated wealth.
- 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.