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26 stories matching smelt
- Minority Stockholders Defeat Tacoma Smelting Company
After a multi-year legal battle, a circuit court reverses a lower court decision, handing a victory to shareholders alleging disenfranchisement by the smelting company.
- The Day the Smelter Blew: Peter Williams and the Seattle Explosion
A carpenter’s routine repair job ends in tragedy when a blowpipe explodes at Selhy’s Smelting Works, killing him instantly.
- The Empire Sells Off the Smelter
Independent miners in the Pacific Northwest move to seize control of the Everett reduction works, breaking the stranglehold of the industry trust.
- An Early Coastal Survey of the Quillehuyt River
James G. Swan documents his journey to the Quillayute River, describing the geography, the Indigenous stronghold at James Island, and the aftermath of the Southerner shipwreck.
- The Wooden Pipe Patent War
A Denver inventor takes a Snohomish County mining company to federal court over a dispute involving hooped wooden pipes.
- The Victim Behind Bars
An assaulted woman, held as a state witness against her abusers, suffers in the city police station.
- Washington's Thick Coal Seams Promise Industrial Growth
A geological survey of the region's vast coal reserves reveals a rugged, difficult landscape that promises to drive the Pacific Northwest's future industrial independence.
- The Snohomish Cattle Scam
A local farmer gets more than he bargained for when he unknowingly buys his own stolen livestock back from a neighbor.
- Preserving the Bounty of Puget Sound
How local naturalists prepared a comprehensive collection of Washington's fish for the 1893 World's Fair.
- A Mining Manager Vanishes, Then Walks Into Tacoma With a Kidnapping-at-Sea Story
T. A. Cox, missing from his Arizona home since December, resurfaces on Puget Sound claiming he was drugged, robbed and forced aboard a strange ship in San Francisco, then turned adrift.
- The Smelter Fires Up Again, and a Town Exhales
A second furnace roars to life at Northport's smelter on Thanksgiving week, the payroll swells — and a manager's quiet trip to the Orient mines hints that more stacks may follow.
- The Boat Thief at the Jail Door
A suspected thief stolen from Tacoma is apprehended in Seattle, leading to a tense struggle at the threshold of the local jail.
- The Alchemy of the Sands
Prospectors on the coast claim to have found a secret chemical process to extract gold from black sand near Ocosta.
- Fire on the High Seas
A stowaway on the bark Lady Lampson, bound for the Pacific Northwest, nearly destroys the ship with a fire and a razor.
- The Struggle for Access in Seattle's Night Schools
When immigrant students sought an education in 1892, they faced exclusionary sentiment from school officials who labeled them 'untidy' and 'dishwashers.'
- The City’s ‘Losings-Bank’: A Temperance Sermon on Economic Ruin
In an 1881 sermon at Plymouth Church, a local minister argues that Seattle’s rampant saloon culture—not market forces—is the primary engine of financial instability.
- Tacoma's 1894: Falling Lumber, Rising Flour, and a New Rolling Mill
The Ledger's year-end review found reasons for optimism in shipping, smelting, meat packing, and new rail connections—even as low prices cut into the lumber trade.
- They Planned to Pull Iron Out of Columbia River Sand
A Hanford inventor and the Great Western Iron Company claimed the Columbia Valley's sand held high-grade magnetite worth $90 a ton.
- The Snohomish Bond Scheme: How Outsiders Tried to Rig City Finances
When Eastern and California financiers tried to orchestrate a 'little combine' to depress the value of city bonds, Snohomish officials fought back.
- The Oriole Mine Strikes Pay Dirt
After months of development in the Metaline camp, the Oriole mine prepares to ship high-grade lead and silver ore.
- The Nickel Strike That Wasn’t a Boom—Yet
A Kittitas County nickel discovery promised one of the largest deposits in the country, but capital and roads had to be convinced before the wealth could move.
- The Creosote Fortress: How a New Plant Aimed to Save Seattle’s Piers from the 'Teredo'
A massive industrial complex rises six miles north of downtown, promising to protect the city's wooden infrastructure from the destructive shipworm.
- 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.
- Puget Sound's Fishing Future, Blocked by Ice and Freight
A federal fisheries report praises the region's deep harbors and salmon runs, but explains why deep-sea halibut and cod fishing has failed to pay—and what it will take to change that.
- The Clay Under Seattle Built a Million-Dollar Industry
King County clay works turned local deposits into firebrick, paving brick, sewer pipe and architectural terra cotta—winning federal tests and employing hundreds of men.