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| Year | Stories |
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| 1876 | 1 |
| 1878 | 2 |
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| 1885 | 1 |
| 1887 | 1 |
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| 1892 | 2 |
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20 stories matching trash
- The Queen City’s Reputation Problem
A visiting soap manufacturer discovers that while rival cities like Portland and San Francisco love to trash-talk Seattle, the reality on the ground is far more impressive.
- The Fight Against 'Indecent' Print
Tacoma authorities move to criminalize the sale of 'indecent' newspapers and tabloids.
- The Seattle-Tacoma Rivalry Began with Petty Insults
While Tacoma boosters once mocked Seattle’s 'niggardly' natural gifts, the Dispatch fired back with a masterclass in civic trash-talk.
- The Street-Sweeping Crackdown of 1889
Local merchants learn the hard way that the city is no longer tolerating trash on the sidewalk as ordinances go into effect.
- A Scathing Call for Civic Pride
The local newspaper editor blasts the City Council for allowing Coulee City to descend into a state of 'innocuous desuetude' marked by neglected sidewalks and wandering livestock.
- Sparks from Burning Trash Devastate Local Ranch
Twenty tons of hay and a large barn are lost at the Anthony ranch near Richland; family home saved by neighbors.
- The Duel That Wasn't: An Editor and a Statesman
James Hamilton Lewis, a flashy Seattle lawyer and orator, attempts to challenge an editor to a duel, only to have the challenge thrown in the trash due to a breach of etiquette.
- The Fire That Never Was: How Seattle’s Insurance Panic Saved the City
When two insurance executives declared Seattle a 'death trap' of combustible trash, they triggered a civic cleanup that lowered premiums and saved countless buildings from the flames that had already destroyed much of the city.
- The Reverend Who Hated Grays Harbor
A disgruntled preacher trashed Aberdeen in a Minnesota paper after he failed to find success in the Pacific Northwest—and local editors didn't take it lying down.
- The $12,000 Garbage Scow: How Seattle’s City Council Tried to Buy a Trash Boat for Less Than a House
When the lowest bid for a municipal garbage scow came in at nearly $13,000—more than double the estimate—the city council was forced to slash specifications, revealing the tight financial straits of early 20th-century Seattle.
- A Penny Dreadful for the Pioneer
A Seattle editor reviews a piece of pulp fiction, warning that if the author keeps killing off the population at this rate, there will be nobody left to read the story.
- The Great 'Sour Grapes' Feud of 1892
When a Tacoma newspaper attempted to trash the San Juan Islands as a speculative wasteland, the locals hit back in print—blaming the insult on petty jealousy over their loyalty to Seattle.
- A Sanitary Sermon for Kennewick
City Health Officer F.M. Crosby issues a biblical-style list of ten ordinances to combat filth and disease.
- The Night the Jay Rial Company Insulted Spokane Falls
A packed house at Cannon's Hall got a mangled 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' — and the local critic did not hold back.
- The Hidden Anarchist Dens of Old Seattle
A reporter goes undercover into the city's dimly lit saloons to find the radicals, the red-eyed agitators, and the illicit literature that supposedly threatened the order of the growing town.
- The Unrelenting Doorbell: A Victorian Guide to Handling Salesmen
A satirical look at the day in the life of a beleaguered homemaker besieged by solicitors in 1870s Seattle.
- The Seattle Postmaster's Inbox Woes
A satirical poetic complaint from 1885 captures the frustration of a growing city struggling with mail delivery, box rent, and the perceived indifference of the local postal bureaucracy.
- The Pend Oreille Swells Toward a Record Crest
Heavy rains in Montana send drift and broken booms downstream, threatening Newport’s mills and log supply.
- Spokane Falls Wins the Land Office—and Sprague Howls
A Sprague paper accused Spokane Falls of backroom land speculation to land the federal Land Office. The Review answered with boosterish fury and a warning to the 'upper country.'
- The Typo That Made Seattle the Most Taxed City in America
A comptroller's misplaced decimal turned a $1.36 tax rate into $12.60 in the World Almanac. By the time the Chamber of Commerce ran it down, Congress was quoting it — and Tacoma was begging the newspapers to stop trashing both cities.
Also about this, in other words
- The Garbage Crisis: Seattle’s ‘Primitive’ Streets Demand a Permanent Solution
As the City Council debates the fate of the city's waste, officials warn that makeshift disposal methods are turning neighborhoods into health hazards and driving down property values.
- The Great Garbage Debate: Seattle’s Early Fight for Sanitation
While the city council opted for a cheap, pollutive scow system to dump waste into the Sound, local doctors warned that the tides would only bring the filth right back to Seattle’s doorsteps.