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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 2 |
| 1877 | 3 |
| 1883 | 1 |
| 1884 | 1 |
| 1885 | 2 |
| 1886 | 1 |
| 1888 | 1 |
| 1889 | 1 |
| 1891 | 1 |
| 1892 | 3 |
| 1893 | 3 |
| 1894 | 2 |
| 1895 | 2 |
| 1899 | 1 |
| 1908 | 1 |
| 1909 | 3 |
| 1910 | 4 |
| 1923 | 1 |
33 stories matching slack
- Copper, Silver, and a Close Call: Newport's Mining District Heats Up
Promising strikes at the Bornite and Last Chance mines draw new capital and extra shifts—but a hoist accident leaves one miner badly hurt.
- When Seattle Was Coal Country
A detailed 1895 survey shows King County leading Washington's coal output, with Seattle shipping fuel to California, Oregon, and the Midwest—while labor troubles and spontaneous mine fires shadowed the boom.
- The Shadow Over Seattle's Waterfront
As the anti-Chinese movement spreads through the Pacific Northwest, agitators in Seattle and Tacoma organize a campaign of expulsion, claiming the city's prosperity is at risk.
- A Grand Jury’s Grim Look at Seattle’s Jail
A scathing report from 1888 slams local conditions for youth and calls for urgent reform, while calling out industrial pollution in the Cedar River.
- A Knife on Union Avenue: Newport Lunch Wagon Owner Chases Down Cook Who Robbed Him
H. McGraw, a cook at 'Red' Warren's lunch wagon, took the night's receipts and skipped town. Warren caught him, recovered the money, and then stabbed him between the ribs.
- The Day Seattle Shut Down: Sailors, Longshoremen and the First Labor Day
Banks, courts and public offices closed for the first time in the city's history, 2,500 people packed Pioneer Place for a 36-minute tug-of-war, and a labor orator told the crowd that good wages are the engine of everyone's prosperity.
- Metal Workers Strike Against the Eight-Hour Day Opposition
Strikers in the metal trades enter their sixth month of labor action, defying industry leaders like Harrison Gray Otis who seek to suppress the eight-hour workday.
- A Rope of Rags, a Jar of Coal Oil, and a Tacoma Arson Plot
Fire Chief Bruemmer found a carefully laid fuse running through a mortgaged tenement—just before the owner left town for Neah Bay.
- The Hanging Party That Wasn't: Puget Sound's First Murder Arrest
A retired sailor recalls the day a ship's crew nearly lynched a stevedore at Port Blakely—and the strange reunion that followed years later.
- The Wild West of the Seattle Waterfront
A dangerous 1877 standoff between captains reveals a lawless, unregulated harbor where ship lines were a hazard to life and limb.
- Broken Bones at the Capstan
A dangerous industrial accident aboard the steamer Chehalis nearly claims a life in Lake Washington.
- The Land Grabbers of Snohomish: How Loggers Hoarded Tide Marshes
A local editorial exposes the speculative tactics of transient loggers who are buying up fertile river bottomlands for quick profit, leaving the valley's agricultural potential in limbo.
- The Sheriff’s Mercy in Union
A coal miner facing eviction due to a grocery debt is granted a reprieve by an empathetic sheriff.
- The Day Seattle’s Dudes Learned to Crease Their Trousers
A royal fashion blunder in New York trickled down to Seattle’s menswear stores, forever changing how local men pressed their slacks.
- The Strange Afterlife of a Murdered Man
Letters from disgruntled ex-wives and rivals surface after a Waterville man is murdered, revealing a long, chaotic trail of failed marriages.
- Fatal Miscalculation at the Tacoma Railyard
A tragic accident involving a Northern Pacific Railway official highlights the brutal mechanical risks of the era's expanding infrastructure.
- A High-Wire Act Above Fourth Street
A building mover narrowly escapes death after being swept off a roof and left dangling from telegraph wires.
- The Pacific Coast’s Fear of ‘Asiatic Hordes’
A look at the xenophobic political rhetoric fueling defense spending and exclusionary sentiment in 1909 Washington.
- The Gun Behind the Bureau: A Seattle Shooting’s Reluctant Witness
In January 1891, a tense arraignment revealed how a teenager’s hesitation and a hidden shotgun led to an assault charge in downtown Seattle.
- The Shadow Trade at Nooksack River
A government agent describes the precarious intersection of logging, displacement, and the illicit opium trade on the Lummi Reservation.
- Miraculous Escape as Overland Train Derails and Burns
A Northern Pacific train heading to Tacoma crashes near Buckley, destroying mail and express cars by fire, though passengers report no major injuries.
- The Health Officer's Ultimatum
Dr. Palmer declares he will no longer pick up the slack for the city's refusal to fund indigent medical care.
- The Struggle for a Coal Railroad
Business is stagnant, and a local editor argues that the only path to prosperity is building a city-backed rail line to the Green River coal fields—despite opposition from the Northern Pacific.
- The Alarmist Officer
A Seattle patrolman's attempt to slack off duty by pulling a fake fire alarm led to a public scandal and the end of his career.
- 150 Jobs Waiting at the River: Fidelity Mill Set to Open Across from Newport
With 15 million feet of logs in the boom, the Fidelity Lumber Co. races toward a July 10 start and a two-shift payroll for about 150 men.
Also about this, in other words
- A Warning to Labor: Everett's Carpenter Surplus
As unemployment hits the building trades, the local Labor Journal warns workers from other cities to stay away.
- Plumbers Strike and Demand Wage Hike
Spokane master plumbers face a complete work stoppage as journeymen strike for better pay, sparking fears of a broader construction crisis.
- The Chain-Gang’s Shovel Symphony
In the heart of Olympia, a group of convicts turned Pacific Avenue into their personal construction site, wielding pickaxes and shovels with obstinate pride.
- The Logjam at Priest Point
A long-standing practice of mooring logs in the Snohomish River clashes with federal authority, leaving local loggers caught in a bureaucratic net.
- Chief Jackson’s Quest for a Better Police Dispatch
Seattle’s Chief of Police returns from a fact-finding mission to Portland and San Francisco, hoping to import a superior telephone patrol system to curb the static and confusion of the local line.
- Turning the Chain-Gang Toward Thrift
A city commissioner rejects expensive wood bids for the pumping station, proposing to employ the chain-gang instead.
- Laundry Workers Take Over Spanaway Park
1,300 Tacoma laundry workers and their families gathered for an annual picnic despite the rainy weather, competing in races and dancing into the evening.
- Efficiency on the Waterfront
A clever engineering fix replaces a main mast in record time at the Seattle docks.