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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 9 |
| 1878 | 1 |
| 1880 | 1 |
| 1882 | 1 |
| 1883 | 3 |
| 1885 | 7 |
| 1886 | 1 |
| 1887 | 1 |
| 1888 | 4 |
| 1889 | 1 |
| 1891 | 2 |
| 1892 | 4 |
| 1893 | 15 |
| 1894 | 7 |
| 1895 | 9 |
| 1897 | 1 |
| 1898 | 3 |
| 1903 | 6 |
| 1904 | 3 |
| 1908 | 2 |
| 1909 | 3 |
| 1911 | 1 |
| 1915 | 1 |
| 1916 | 2 |
| 1917 | 1 |
| 1925 | 1 |
90 stories matching rod
- The Lightning Rod Swindler Who Targeted the Courthouse
A traveling salesman tries to sell protection to a jury foreman, only to discover he’s been pitching his wares to the wrong building.
- Defective Sewer Construction in the Third Ward
Accusations of corruption and shoddy craftsmanship arise as city officials are caught using undersized rods and poor brickwork on public projects.
- A Forty-Foot Iron Rod Bursts Through the Jurgens Mill Wall
A broken carriage rod sends a piston head and forty feet of heavy iron flying through the mill; workers and a lady visitor escape unhurt.
- The Great Smokestack Hoax: Seattle’s Mountain Top Mystery
In 1873, local entrepreneur S. W. Peck convinced the city that a legendary 'living rod' lay buried atop American Flat. His desperate drilling operation reveals more about the era's speculative fever than geological truth.
- The Streetcar Brawl at Ninth Street
A fare dispute turned violent when a Tacoma streetcar conductor armed himself with a heavy switch hook against a passenger, only to be beaten with his own weapon.
- Tragedy in the Wheat Fields
Industrial accidents and barroom brawls take a heavy toll on rural laborers in Eastern Washington.
- The Fatal Climb for the Church Bells
A local carpenter attempted to scale a church steeple to settle a debate about height, meeting a tragic end in full view of the town.
- A Mysterious Cyclone Tears Through the Cascade Mountains
An eye-witness report describes a straight, 40-rod-wide path of destruction cut through the forest near North Bend, leveling timber and blocking mountain roads.
- The $80,000 Cranberry Bog Behind the Ilwaco Beach
A state commissioner tours Pacific County's cranberry marsh — 1,600 acres, 7,280 bushels shipped to San Francisco, 200 pickers at fifty cents a bushel, and a company openly hoping to replace its Chinese crew with white labor.
- The Hop Pickers' Labor Pipeline
Business leaders in 1885 Seattle formalize the recruitment of Chinese labor to fuel Washington's booming hop harvest.
- The Pheasant That Cost a Market President $15
A Seattle man’s commitment to the local rod and gun club led to a swift courtroom sting against a city business owner.
- The Night the Wasco Lost Power in Peavine Pass
Heavy seas swept the Bellingham Navigation Company steamer Wasco, broke her piston rod and blew out a cylinder head before the State of Washington rescued passengers and towed her into Anacortes.
- The Price of Apathy in the School Board Election
A surprise victory for J. A. Johnson over Rod Sprague reveals that local civic engagement hangs on the turnout of supporters.
- Introducing Game Birds to the Sound
The Seattle Rod and Gun Club aims to make the Puget Sound district a premier sporting destination by importing Ohio clay birds and game.
- Competition Heats Up at the West Seattle Grounds
Local marksmen test their aim in the season's first medal shoot, while a friendly wager between rival club presidents turns sour for one.
- The Landlady’s Fourth of July Ultimatum
A boarding house owner demands that her tenant stop practicing his political speeches to keep the peace and the stair-rods intact.
- The Mystery of the Mast
Two Seattle brothers discover a man adrift off Blakely Rocks with a bullet in his forehead, sparking a murder investigation in a quiet maritime town.
- Fifty Turns on the Shaft: A Foundry Apprentice's Miraculous Escape
Nineteen-year-old Charles Meydenbauer was caught in the shafting at Moran's foundry, spun fifty times twenty feet above the floor—and lived to describe it.
- The Last Spike for the Great Northern
Without fanfare, the transcontinental link is finished in the Cascades, promising a new era for Seattle.
- A Wall of Smoke and Flame Across Puget Sound
Forest fires from Hood Canal to the Nooksack Valley left dozens of families homeless in 1894, while smoke turned steamboat travel blind and daily life in Seattle into a gray haze.
- A Wife, an Ox Goad, and a Land Feud: Homer Strait Butchered on a Cowlitz County Road
A lawsuit over a piece of land ended in a roadside ambush near Kalama, with Strait's estranged wife wielding an ox goad while her son-in-law emptied a pistol into him.
- An Infernal Machine on the Tracks
A dangerous, home-made bomb was discovered on the streetcar tracks in Seattle, chilling a city already tense from labor agitation.
- The Horror in the Brush
Surveyors working in the woods of West Seattle discover a yellow trunk containing a gruesome, blood-stained discovery that suggests a dark crime.
- The Seattle Mill Strike of 1885
When the Yesler Mill announced sudden wage cuts, the workers staged a walkout that paralyzed the waterfront.
- The Day the Slash Hills Burned
A devastating fire sweeps through the rural settlement, consuming homes, crops, and winter stores, leaving families to pick through the ashes.
Also about this, in other words
- A Wet Rope, a Live Wire, and a Boy on a Bricklaying Crew
Reed Crews was coming down from a tin roof when a wet rope touched a power line. The accident left him dying and exposed the everyday lethality of 1909 work.
- The Rowing Invention That Changed the River
A Snohomish local debuts a mechanical rowing gear that allowed boaters to steer and power their craft with ease, signaling a shift in daily river navigation.
- A Knockout at the Walla Walla Athletic Club
A boxing match ends in less than a round, leaving the crowd stunned and the challenger dazed.
- The Unsinkable Seaman
After losing his leg in a shipboard accident, an American sailor invents a wooden limb that keeps him working the high seas.
- The Unladylike Triumph of a Determined Angler
A fishing trip turns into a chaotic, close-quarters wrestling match when a persistent angler finally secures her catch in an unconventional way.
- A River Pact Collapses, but the Metaline Returns to Service
A signed steamboat connection between the Ruth and the Pend Oreille River Navigation Company fell through within days, even as Newport’s river fleet shifted schedules and put the Metaline back to work.
- The Competitive Spirit of Old Seattle
A historic local shooting club gathers to elect new leadership and discuss the high-stakes world of Northwest trap shooting.
- The Ruth Takes Shape for the Wildest Steamboat Ride in America
With her machinery unloaded at Newport, the new steamer Ruth is expected to make her trial trip by early September, hauling Metaline ore and passengers through Box Canyon.