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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 15 |
| 1877 | 5 |
| 1878 | 1 |
| 1880 | 1 |
| 1883 | 9 |
| 1884 | 1 |
| 1885 | 5 |
| 1886 | 1 |
| 1887 | 7 |
| 1888 | 5 |
| 1889 | 23 |
| 1890 | 1 |
| 1891 | 8 |
| 1892 | 5 |
| 1893 | 5 |
| 1894 | 3 |
| 1895 | 10 |
| 1898 | 3 |
| 1899 | 6 |
| 1903 | 8 |
| 1904 | 9 |
| 1909 | 5 |
| 1910 | 1 |
| 1915 | 1 |
| 1916 | 2 |
140 stories matching thoroughfar
- The Pavement Fight: Seattle’s Battle for a Wider Second Street
A century ago, city leaders warned that Seattle’s narrow streets were choking its growth, sparking a massive petition to widen the thoroughfare before the 'brick building' boom made the change impossible.
- The 3,249-Acre Map That Laid Out Seattle’s Waterfront
In 1895, King County appraisers filed the first full plat of Seattle’s tide lands—reserving broad rail avenues, harbor blocks and a street grid that still shadows the modern waterfront.
- The Madison Street Blockade
A critical city thoroughfare is left in ruins after competing companies battle over franchise rights, leaving the public to pay the price.
- Seattle’s Streets Were Still Mostly Wood—Until the Brick Came
With 750 miles platted and only 106 improved, city engineers pushed permanent pavement on Union Street and dreamed of brick from local clay.
- The Beach Road That Wasn't: Seattle’s First Infrastructure Crisis
In May 1877, the *Seattle Daily Intelligencer* sounded the alarm over the deteriorating condition of the city's primary artery to the waterfront, blaming poor drainage and a lack of gravel for turning the vital thoroughfare into a muddy trough.
- Northern Pacific Moves to Control Tacoma's Railroad Avenue
How the Northern Pacific Railroad maneuvered the city council to seize prime tide-flat property, effectively bottling up Tacoma's harbor and blocking competition.
- The Million-Dollar Protest: Front Street Owners vs. The Cable Car
Pioneers and property magnates rallied against a proposed cable railway on Seattle’s main thoroughfare, arguing that the city council was ignoring the will of taxpayers in favor of outside capital.
- The City That Couldn't Pay Its Bills: Seattle’s Fiscal Crisis and the Fight for Expansion
Mayor Moran and Councilman Dane plead with citizens to understand why street paving is stalled and sewer plans are shelved—not from laziness, but because state law caps the city's debt just as the population doubles.
- The Vanishing Sidewalks: How Seattle’s Council Cleared the Streets of 'Obstructions'
In a bold move to modernize downtown, the City Council ordered the immediate removal of all fruit stands, bootblack benches, and candy vendors from the city's busiest thoroughfares. The result? A clash between civic order and the livelihoods of informal street merchants.
- The Great Second Street Brawl: A City Hall Conflict Over Progress
When Seattle’s city leaders proposed widening a major downtown street in 1892, they ignited a bitter debate over property rights, public vs. private cost, and the relentless march of urban expansion.
- Seattle's 1877 Plea: Build a Wagon Road Over the Cascades Before Portland Steals the Inland Empire
With no railroad yet across the mountains, a Seattle newspaper argued the city's future depended on a wagon road to Yakima—before Portland grabbed the inland trade forever.
- The Unbeatable Fence of Old Town
A standoff between property owners and the city government plays out on an obstructed public thoroughfare, mirroring the modern tensions of land access in a growing metropolis.
- The Unknown Man Below the Falls
A decomposing body wedged between trees near a downtown Spokane thoroughfare is examined by a coroner's jury — and buried without a name.
- The City Streets Are Now Bottomless Mud Pits
Walla Walla business owners urge the city to scrape the main thoroughfares, claiming current conditions are worse than those found in small country villages.
- One Street, Eight Names: The Tide-Land Map That Broke Seattle's Addresses
When the tide-land appraisers published their new plat, they named the filled waterfront after the states and the big cities — ignoring every street already on the ground. City Engineer Thomson's renaming scheme collapsed on the spot.
- Blocking the Mullan Road
Farmers are barricading a public thoroughfare, forcing local officials to intervene.
- A Deal to Fix Maple Park—If the City Does Its Part
Maple Park's property owners offer to grade their streets if the city fixes the central park—and a plan surfaces to remake the square in front of the new courthouse.
- Every Street a Sled Trail: Seattle Breaks in Dog Teams for the Klondike
In the winter of 1898 the thoroughfares of the Sound cities turned into training grounds — sleds, go-devils and sail-carts everywhere, companies buying and selling sled dogs at $25 to $100 a team, and one man solemnly breaking in a team of billy goats.
- The Circus Comes to Walla Walla
A traveling spectacle transforms a sleepy town with camels, elephants, and a daredevil 'human fly' act.
- The Mud-Hole of Commercial Street
An 1876 editorial campaign to transform Seattle's 'wretched' mud-caked thoroughfare into a paved road using convict labor and harbor ballast.
- The City That Forgot Its Trees: Seattle’s Dusty Streets and the Missed Opportunity for Green
A year after citizens demanded shade trees, the city remains barren. An editorial warns that without immediate action, Seattle will remain a 'dry, dusty' settlement rather than a beautiful metropolis.
- Seattle’s First Great Street: How Denny Hill Became Front Street
In March 1877, the city is racing to finish the brutal grading of Front Street, transforming a muddy slope into Seattle’s first grand thoroughfare.
- The Great Circus Showdown of 1888
When the Sells Brothers’ traveling circus arrived in Seattle, it brought a sprawling, multi-ringed spectacle that promised to transform the town's public thoroughfares into a Roman-style festival.
- Rising from the Ashes: The Great Seattle Fire of 1888
While the downtown core smoldered, Seattle citizens gathered in the courthouse—lit by tallow dips—to demand a modern city of brick and stone, rejecting makeshift wooden shacks and dreaming of a reconstructed metropolis.
- The Rebirth of a Burned City
Following the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, the city pivots from disaster to rapid reconstruction, grappling with housing, labor, and the challenge of rebuilding a metropolis from ashes.
Also about this, in other words
- A Violent Dispute on the White River
A German laborer and two employees of H. C. Jefls trade blows in a roadside altercation that lands both parties in front of a judge.
- A Desperate Swim in the Palouse
After losing his land and descending into a alcoholic crisis, a former farmer experiences a terrifying delusion and is rescued from the river.
- The Palouse Prosperity Boom
Whitman County farmers leave the 1893 credit panic behind as bank deposits shatter all previous records.