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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 1 |
| 1877 | 2 |
| 1883 | 2 |
| 1884 | 3 |
| 1887 | 2 |
| 1889 | 4 |
| 1891 | 2 |
| 1892 | 1 |
| 1895 | 1 |
| 1903 | 2 |
| 1908 | 1 |
| 1909 | 1 |
22 stories matching topographi
- Connecting the City to the Lake
Mayor Strove and the City Council inspect the newly completed Jackson Street grade, opening a path from downtown to Lake Washington.
- Seattle’s Endless War Against the Hillside
In 1878, city officials scrambled to grade Mill Street to fix dangerous mudslides—a challenge that continues to plague Seattle’s topography today.
- The Quest for a Snoqualmie Pass Railroad
A citizen's pitch for a specific route through the Cascades to connect Seattle with the riches of Eastern Washington.
- The Council's Expensive Water Report
Walla Walla officials are paying $500 for a new water study despite already possessing a comprehensive 1893 report.
- The Unbuilt Dream of the Seattle Ship Canal
In 1892, rail giants and civic leaders pressed Congress for a canal to connect Seattle’s lakes to the Sound, arguing that suffocating railroad tracks were strangling local industry.
- The Great Migration of Seattle’s Buildings
A peculiar phenomenon hits Pacific Avenue as wooden structures vacate their lots to make way for the city's new brick ambitions.
- After the Great Fire: Seattle Rebuilds from Ashes
Following the devastating 1889 fire that leveled the city’s business district, residents and business owners scramble to reorganize amidst the ruins of the downtown core.
- The Bid for the State Capital
North Yakima asserts its central geography and climate advantages to become the seat of government for the new state.
- The Orchardist’s Hard Lesson in Elevation
After a devastating May freeze wiped out his peach crop, a local grower shares a hard-won lesson on the importance of topography and variety selection for Pacific Northwest fruit farming.
- The Original Queen Anne Land Rush
An 1889 promotional advertisement offers a rare look into how early developers sold the 'aristocratic' promise of Seattle’s steep topography to land-hungry investors.
- The Unbuilt Imperial Skyscraper
Tacoma business elites rally to fund a grand downtown skyscraper and a massive subway tunnel network that would reshape the city's topography.
- The Great Ellensburg Map Scandal
A bitter, humorous local feud between North Yakima and Ellensburg reveals the lengths to which frontier boosters went to lure railroads and settlers with 'imaginary' geography.
- The Birth of Woodland Park
How a private visionary’s 'enchanter's wand' turned a rugged, logged-over wilderness into Seattle’s premier public escape.
- A Ship's Name-Board Washes Ashore 115 Miles From Where the Ivanhoe Went Down
A lighthouse keeper's wife finds the port quarter name-board of a lost coal freighter buried in the sand at Willapa Bay — and a Navy inspector uses the currents to argue the ship foundered far south of Cape Flattery.
- 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.
- Olympia Bought a $1,500 Sewer Map Critics Called Worthless
A letter to the editor accuses the city council of buying a stranger's sewer plan without scrutiny—complete with a harbor reservoir already condemned in San Diego.
- The Sewer Plan That Imagined a City of 200,000
Engineer J. S. Camp presented Olympia’s council with a tide-powered reservoir and automatic flush tanks, a system meant to grow with the capital city.
- Trail Wars: Spokane Fights for the Road to the Coeur d'Alene Gold
As prospectors rush the new Coeur d'Alene diggings, Spokane boosters battle a Portland paper over which trail is passable — and who gets to outfit the stampede.
- The Self-Made Man of Spokane Falls and His 240-Acre 'Idlewild'
A profile of James E. Roe, who arrived four years ago with not a dollar and now owns a livery stable, a sawmill interest, and a ranch of surpassing beauty eight miles east of the city.
- 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 Boomer Who Lied About the Gold Fields
Spokane Falls' paper takes a Minnesota editor to task for a wildly inaccurate account of the Coeur d'Alene mines — and in doing so lays bare the whole machinery of Western town-site hype.
- A Valley Drowns Every Spring—and One Farmer Wants a Better Dike
A correspondent warns that the Pend Oreille freshet has wrecked $50,000 worth of Calispel Valley crops—and argues the proposed diking districts are too piecemeal to save the basin.