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160 stories matching salt
- The $3,000 Offer to Salt a Washington Land Claim
An Olympia land-office hearing turns on a state witness’s account of a bribe to fake a mineral discovery—and an expert’s verdict that the ground was worthless.
- A Salt Maker, a Sanitarium and the Fight for Medical Lake's Shore
A Chicago syndicate's $75,000 health resort ran into one stubborn lakefront owner—and a forgotten town plat that threatened to erase his claim entirely.
- The School Land That Was Salted With Gold
Washington's attorney general told the Interior Department that a claimant had planted jeweler's gold in gravel from a Pierce County school section to turn public land into a mine.
- The Great Canal Dream
Proponents argue that connecting Lake Washington to the Sound would revolutionize Seattle's shipping and spare iron hulls from the ravages of salt water.
- The Log Jam in Lake Union
How an innovative timber operation cut a channel through the lake to reach salt water, forever changing the Seattle landscape.
- The Silver Rally That Couldn't Afford to Rent the Hall
A hundred Seattle free-silver men met on the Armory steps after the rent fell through, then passed the hat to send one delegate to Salt Lake City.
- Governor McGraw Refuses to March for Free Silver
Invited to send three delegates to a Salt Lake City convention, Washington’s governor writes a blunt refusal—and says 16-to-1 coinage is not a popular doctrine in this state.
- The Shipworm Eating Seattle’s Waterfront
Wharf owners were spending a fortune fighting a saltwater pest. The fix: fill the tide flats, cut freshwater waterways, and make the harbor safe for pilings—and insurance.
- The Race for the Rails: Seattle’s Fight to Keep the Northern Pacific Branch
As Oregon competitors maneuver to steal federal land grants, a local correspondent warns that losing the railroad connection could leave Washington Territory behind for decades.
- The 1889 Great Seattle Thirst
As Seattle boomed toward 30,000 residents, the city faced a critical choice: build a dual system of salt water for fire and fresh for drinking, or bet everything on Lake Washington.
- Warm Rain Triggers Slides and Floods Across Puget Sound
A winter warm spell melts mountain snow, sending mudslides across the Great Northern line and flooding the Skagit Delta, stranding passengers and threatening crops with salt water.
- Seven Months at Sea: The State of Maine’s Ordeal
The State of Maine left New York in July 1892 and reached Seattle 201 days later, her crew disabled by saltwater boils, her water spoiled, and her captain forced to beat men to the pumps.
- The Orting Tragedy: A Husband’s Despair and a Fortune-Teller’s Deceit
Edgar Kimball, a Mormon settler who moved his family from Utah to Tacoma in search of purity, was found dead from morphine overdose in Orting after years of marital strife and accusations of infidelity.
- The Gold Rush That Never Was
A Tacoma land speculator attempted to claim school property as a 'placer mine,' sparking a massive legal battle and accusations of salted soil.
- Seattle's Great Fire Safety Debate
City officials clash over whether to invest in expensive new fire engines or build a radical new system of salt-water mains for the business district.
- The Salmon Slump of 1894
A historic overproduction leaves Seattle's fishing industry in a cold, stagnant market.
- Salted Gold and a School Section: Tacoma's Land Fight Heads to Hearing
State officials say a notorious South Tacoma placer claim was salted with gold colors, while the attorney general and ex-Governor Swineford trade charges over the investigation.
- The Silent Iodine Deficiency
A visiting physician warns that Yakima Valley's water supply contributes to widespread goiter, urging families to adopt iodized salt.
- The Salt Water Summer of 1878
Before indoor plumbing and private beaches, Seattle's waterfront was the city's shared, chaotic, and joyous summer escape.
- The Booster Who Sold a Forest by the Lot
A Tacoma real-estate promoter turned a virgin forest into a one-day $135,000 land rush—then got lost in the woods and stumbled on a surveyor’s stake from his own subdivision.
- The Tacoma Gold Rush That Was Salted With Quicksilver
A mining journal exposes how placer claims on Tacoma school land turned a public trust into a speculative jackpot—complete with imported gold, alleged bribery, and a land office that kept saying yes.
- The Salmon King of the Mediterranean
An Eastern businessman is shipping hundreds of tons of Alaska salmon to Europe, arguing that Seattle's future lies in industrializing its natural bounty.
- The Ghost Town That Only Existed on Paper
How two swindlers and a 'Nebraska Cyclone' preacher conned a community with a townsite located entirely in a duck-filled salt marsh.
- The Land Grab That Stalled Seattle’s Growth
A local editorial warns that the Northern Pacific Railroad’s hoarding of millions of acres is strangling settlement and development in Washington Territory.
- Mount Vernon's Dikes Held—Barely—as the Skagit Rose
The Skagit River broke a dike near Fir, covered bottomlands, cut trains and mail, and left Mount Vernon watching its new levee seep.
Also about this, in other words
- The Bear That Earned Its Salt
A traveling menagerie arrives in Pullman, offering a rare glimpse into the oddities of frontier entertainment and the community's skeptical gaze.
- The 'Gold Cure' Scam
A medical investigation finds that the popular 'bi-chloride of gold' treatment for alcoholism is actually a mixture of sugar, water, and booze.
- Turning Salt Flats into Wheat Fields
A Yakima sheepman discovers how to reclaim abandoned alkali-ridden soil through careful irrigation.
- The Unlikely Remedy for the Smallpox Outbreak
When a Seattle-area family faced a smallpox contagion in the winter, they bypassed medical uncertainty for an old household mixture—and claimed a miraculous recovery.
- The Salted Sea: A Tacoma Captain’s War on the 'Blah' Price Gang
In a fiery letter to the editor, a local shipping captain denounces the collusion of dockworkers and merchants who inflate freight rates, vowing to bypass them entirely for cheaper ports.
- Aberdeen’s New Salting Plant
A new salmon-packing venture on the waterfront signals a boost for the local economy.
- The Sawdust in Your Spice Cabinet
A Seattle newspaper exposé from 1888 reveals that the city's food supply was being systemically poisoned by greed, with sawdust in spices and grease in butter.
- The Seattle Silver Rebellion
A convention of delegates from the South and West met in Seattle to demand that the federal government restore silver to its rightful place alongside gold, signaling a growing populist resistance against Wall Street's control of the nation's currency.