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|---|---|
| 1854 | 1 |
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| 1862 | 6 |
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| 1877 | 17 |
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913 stories matching smith
- The Mill That Vanished Before Its Workers Got Paid
Kent mill hands won wage liens, then found the company's assets allegedly shifted to a new corporation—and the sheriff returning 'No property found.'
- 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 Professor, the President, and the Champagne College Deal
A legislative investigation at Pullman exposes secret opposition, abandoned building plans, and site-selection hospitality that included brass bands and champagne.
- The Sewing Machine Grudge
A bitter rivalry between two Seattle sewing machine agents leads to arrest, embezzlement charges, and petty sabotage.
- Camp Kelpie: A Seattle Hunting Party in the Last Great Bear Country
In 1895, Seattle sportsmen pitched camp on Hood Canal between the Duckabush and Hamma Hamma rivers and found a wilderness thick with black bear, salmon, and one very unlucky tenderfoot.
- The Tragedy at the Smith Home
A domestic accident in 1885 leads to the sudden, accidental death of a young mother in her bedroom.
- The Settler Who Watched Olympia Get Claimed
R. C. Smith, who crossed the plains in 1848, recalls the canoe landing where Edmund Sylvester took the claim that became Olympia.
- The San Juan Island Forgery: A Soldier’s Scam and a Territorial Cover-Up
In the tense weeks of the Pig War standoff, a U.S. Army sergeant allegedly forged paymaster certificates to steal $1,604 from a local man in Olympia, sparking a legal battle that exposed corruption within the military ranks.
- A Creameryman Confesses: 'Our Business Conditions Are Rotten'
In an unusually candid letter to The Ranch, the manager of the Rockwood Creamery Co. says reckless price-cutting and smooth-talking rivals are cheating Washington dairy farmers and quietly ruining the state's butter.
- The Auction of a Widow’s Legacy: Seattle’s First Real Estate Sale
In May 1882, the Probate Court ordered the liquidation of Mary A. Smith’s estate, marking one of the earliest recorded public land auctions in Seattle’s history.
- Betrayal and Bloodshed at Chuckanut Bay
A poultry farming partnership in Bellingham ends in a horrific murder-suicide after years of mounting suspicion and personal strife.
- The State Draws a Line Along Seattle’s Waterfront
In 1896, Olympia fixed the harbor boundary from West Seattle to Meadow Point, mapped new Duwamish and Salmon Bay waterways, and cleared the way to sell tide lands.
- The Battle for the Harmon Estate
A legal dispute unfolds in North Seattle over an elderly woman’s property, a deed signed under suspicious circumstances, and a family legacy caught in the crossfire of elder care and inheritance.
- The Traveling Salesman Who Out-Wrestled a Footpad
When an armed robber tried to hold up a local salesman late at night, he found himself in a Greco-Roman wrestling match instead of an easy mugging.
- The Dairy That Started With 20 Rented Cows and Ended Up With 2,560 Acres
Two Spokane entrepreneurs built Hazelwood Dairy on a promise that milk would be exactly as advertised—at a time when watered milk was the norm.
- The Editor, The Gambler, and The Incorruptible Judge
A fiery editorial from 1876 exposes a local feud between the press and the judiciary, revealing a landscape of 'dance houses,' gambling hells, and political bitterness.
- The Logger Who Wrestled a Bear
A local timber worker narrowly escapes death after stumbling into a den and fighting a brown bear for fifteen minutes with an axe.
- Breach-of-Promise Suit: Mary Smith Says Starvation Forced Her to Sign Release
In the latest filing in the Smith-Fisher case, Mary H. Smith claims Elmer H. Fisher took advantage of her poverty to get her to sign away her claims.
- Tacoma Tries to Sell Itself to a Visiting New Yorker
A New York Tribune interview with Charles S. Smith set off a Tacoma-Seattle inferiority complex: real railroads versus prospective ones, wheat and coal versus new blocks and fine homes.
- The Bank vs. The Smiths: A Benton County Foreclosure Drama
A summons filed in the Superior Court reveals a $200 debt dispute between the Bank of Kennewick and local residents F.B. and Belle Smith, highlighting the precarious financial ties between early agricultural settlers and regional lenders.
- The Great Debate: Where Should Seattle's Ship Canal Go?
In 1892, federal engineers weighed the massive engineering feat of connecting Lake Washington to Puget Sound, deliberating whether to carve the path through Salmon Bay or Smith Cove.
- 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.
- The City That Wasn't: Seattle’s First Real Estate Scam
In April 1876, a man named Charles Smith claimed to own the entire town of Seattle and tried to sell it to investors. The local press exposed him as a fraud, but his audacity reveals how fragile the young city's land titles were.
- The Tragic End of a Hotelier
A well-known Seattle ship captain and hotel proprietor dies after a fatal overdose of morphine intended to ease his suffering.
- San Francisco Capitalists Plan a New Waterway at Smith's Cove
A newly incorporated dredging company asks the state for the right to dig out and fill Seattle's northern tide flats, promising wharves, railroad yards and mills.
Also about this, in other words
- The Razor Hidden in the Underwear
A domestic dispute turns desperate when a man arrested for threatening his wife attempts to conceal a weapon during a search at the jail.
- The passing of 'Okanogan' Smith
A legendary frontiersman and state representative dies in Seattle, leaving behind a complex legacy of Indian diplomacy, frontier trade, and massive land ownership.
- Tragedy on a Seattle Lot
A lonely stonecutter, haunted by his past and struggling with addiction, ends his life in a public spectacle that leaves a city stunned.
- The False Evangelist
A traveling preacher who claimed a massive inheritance is locked up in Seattle on charges of forgery.
- Tragedy at the Work Bench
James Harris, a pioneer tin-smith, collapses and dies suddenly while laboring at his shop on the corner of Columbia and Third.
- A Judicial Attempt at Reconciliation
In a divorce proceeding, a local judge steps outside the bounds of the bench to urge a feuding couple to try again.
- The Price of a Public Nuisance
A man dubbed 'Dirty Smith' faces the magistrate and finds himself working off his debt to society on the city’s construction projects.
- The Oyster House Bootlegger
A local oyster house proprietor avoids conviction for selling liquor without a license by claiming he sold it at cost to his patrons.