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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 4 |
| 1877 | 3 |
| 1880 | 1 |
| 1886 | 1 |
| 1891 | 3 |
| 1892 | 3 |
| 1893 | 5 |
| 1894 | 2 |
| 1895 | 5 |
| 1903 | 1 |
| 1904 | 2 |
| 1909 | 2 |
32 stories matching rust
- The Mayor's Flag Fight
A Seattle opera house owner sparks a civic brawl by flying a green flag above the Stars and Stripes, leading the mayor to forcibly intervene.
- The Gift of an Elegant Era
Tacoma club women receive a historic windfall as the W.R. Rust family donates the entire contents of their mansion for a new clubhouse.
- The Rusting Box Factory
A Seattle entrepreneur's attempt to reclaim machinery from a failed East Clallam factory is thwarted by the local sheriff.
- The Absurd Scheme to Build a Railway to the Top of Mount Rainier
When a coal mine failed, desperate land speculators proposed a preposterous tourist railroad to the summit of the mountain to boost property values.
- 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.
- Two Red Boxes on Wheels: Olympia's Sorry Excuse for a Streetcar Line
The street railway's president has told the council he can keep the city tied up in court for two years. The Tribune suggests the new council simply take his franchise away.
- A Deadly Souvenir of the Battle of Seattle
Twenty-one years after the 1856 Battle of Seattle, a local man struck a hidden relic in a fir tree that could have turned lethal.
- The Hospital Door Slams Shut
A local doctor fights for hospital access after being barred from treating his patient at St. Joseph’s.
- The Great Terminal Feud
Judge Thomas Burke slams the Oregon Improvement Company for its long history of blocking Seattle’s progress and rail development.
- The Forgotten Battle at the Mouth of the Okanogan
A newly unearthed cannonball recalls a bloody 19th-century massacre between Hudson’s Bay Company traders and local Indigenous tribes.
- Unearthed Artifacts at a Railroad Grade
Construction crews working on the Great Northern Railway discovered an ancient, mysterious cache of weapons while carving through an Indian grave site near Rock Island.
- Dredging Up the Past in the City Waterway
Human remains and a rusted knife are unearthed from the Tacoma waterfront, likely belonging to a sailor from a ship that capsized years prior.
- Grim Discovery Near Republic
Prospectors on Mount Gibraltar uncover a human skeleton alongside a cougar’s remains, reviving cold case disappearances.
- A Coal Elevator Gives Way at the Foot of Madison Street
Two coal cars and three workers fall twenty feet when a corroded hydraulic cylinder bursts at the Seattle Coal & Iron Company bunkers; all escape without a scratch.
- After the Clallam Went Down, a Seattle Man Asked Why No Puget Sound Steamer Had a Lifeboat That Floated
J. Walton wrote to the president and to Congress with a plain charge: not one passenger steamer on the Sound is properly equipped to save lives — and in two round trips to Nome he never once saw a fire drill.
- The Legislature Tried to Starve the Militia. Seattle’s Officers Rebelled.
A cut to $8,400 — and the abolition of commissioned officers — convinced Washington militia leaders that the state was quietly trying to disband its citizen army.
- The Right to Seize Silent Tracks
In 1886, territorial legislators debated a radical bill to reclaim abandoned railroad rights-of-way, arguing that the public interest outweighed corporate ownership.
- The Nun on the Fire Escape
A delirious man, a locked bedroom, and a nun’s desperate climb up a high-rise fire escape to deliver medicine.
- The Elma Iron Rush
Local prospectors are convinced they have struck it rich in the hills east of Elma, filing claims for iron deposits by the wholesale.
- The Great Fire’s Buried Treasure
A sewer crew working on Front Street unearths a long-lost safe, a fire-eaten relic from the ashes of Seattle’s 1889 catastrophe.
- The Jailbreak That Failed at Lake Union
A failed escape attempt by three young prisoners leaves a jailer with a gun, a missing saw, and a mystery about who was smuggling tools to the jailbirds.
- The Fire Commission Rejects a Faulty Engine
Seattle fire commissioners break ranks with the city council, condemning a new engine as cheap and unreliable.
- City Engineer Fires Bachelors to Save Money
In a wave of municipal cost-cutting, Seattle's city engineer decides that single men are the first to be let go.
- Seattle's Irish Community Crowns Robert Emmet—and Calls for Home Rule
In 1895, the Irish-American Club packed Ranke's Hall to honor the martyred patriot with speeches, songs, and a ringing demand for an Irish parliament.
- The Struggle for Yakima’s First-Class Reputation
Local hop grower R. J. Mackison outlines the necessary industrial upgrades to compete in the global market.
Also about this, in other words
- The Iron Giant Comes West
A record-breaking, twenty-eight car trainload of farm machinery marks the rapid industrialization of the Oregon frontier.
- A Blacksmith's Desperate Act of Heartbreak
After his sweetheart jilted him for flirting with her sister, a Tacoma man attempted to end his life.
- Mill Worker Attempts Suicide Amid Personal Despair
A Tacoma mill employee remains in critical condition after a desperate act brought on by his wife's absence.
- A Brick in a Leavenworth Street Ends a Railroad Man's Life
An engine wiper is jailed at Wenatchee for the drunken-brawl killing of a Great Northern locomotive engineer who leaves four children behind.
- The Hidden Costs of Industrial Labor
A national health report links high mortality rates in the 'dusty trades' to tuberculosis, fueling labor's push for safer conditions.
- The Teredo Worm’s Silent Siege
A massive wheat warehouse on the Tacoma waterfront collapses after wood-boring pests hollowed out the foundation, echoing the vulnerability of the region's rapidly expanding infrastructure.
- A Christmas Eve Killing in the Woods
A railroad foreman is murdered in a Pe-Ell camp, sparking a failed attempt by a lynch mob to claim the shooter.
- The Barber, the Boarder, and the Bad Meat
A Rosalia boarding house proprietor sues for $6,000 after a poet lampoons his culinary standards in the local paper.