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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 4 |
| 1877 | 3 |
| 1879 | 1 |
| 1883 | 3 |
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| 1888 | 2 |
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42 stories matching worm
- The Swarm That Stalled the Trains
A plague of army worms in a Washington swamp grew so thick they brought a locomotive to a grinding, slippery halt.
- The Great Garden Plague of 1889
A voracious 'brown worm' army descends on Seattle, wiping out local vegetable patches and leaving residents desperate for a solution.
- Kennewick Celebrates its First 'Wormless' Corn Crop
Local farmers are puzzled and pleased as the 1915 sweet corn crop arrives remarkably free of worm damage.
- Engineering Tacoma's Waterfront
Tacoma will build a $20,000 bridge to its new filled waterfront, where teredo worms eat untreated pilings.
- The Worm Army in the North End, and the Men Burning It Out
Ten laborers cut and burn infested trees on the Tacoma Land & Improvement Company's property while the county agricultural commissioner predicts four to six more weeks of caterpillars — then butterflies, and no more trouble.
- The Mystery of the Apple-Boring Wasp
An entomologist from Pullman descends on Lynden to investigate a bizarre fruit-eating worm that defies known science.
- Fortifying the Northern Pacific's Coal Bunkers Against Sea Worms
An engineering miscalculation forces urgent retrofitting of new coal infrastructure against the destructive teredo worm.
- The Mutinous Voyage of the Bark McNear
A crew alleges their captain was perpetually intoxicated, abusive, and endangered the ship while failing to provide decent food.
- An Industrial Experiment on the Waterfront
Local entrepreneur James M. Colman introduces a new technology to protect wharf pilings from the destructive 'teredo' wood-boring worm.
- The Fashion Cost of Bird Extinction
A national wildlife advocate warns Tacoma women that wearing feathered hats is fueling a $800 million annual agricultural crisis.
- Taming the Snohomish Valley Marshlands
A look at the settlers turning the muddy, fertile banks of the Snohomish River into a bustling agricultural hub through sweat and engineering.
- The Snake Oil of Snohomish
A century-old miracle cure for man and beast that promised to heal everything from rheumatism to ‘hollow horn’.
- Seattle's Fruit Inspection Racket: Dumping California Produce to Protect Local Markets
A dispute over British Columbia's fruit inspection leads The Ranch to admit that Puget Sound inspectors have used the law to condemn California and Oregon fruit, easing market congestion and raising questions about regulatory abuse.
- The Iron-Jawed Worm That Ate Seattle's Wharves
At the foot of Harrison Street, the Colman family has a new weapon against the teredo worm: steam, a vacuum, and a dose of dead oil of tar.
- The Wharf That Ate Its Workers: Seattle’s First Major Infrastructure Failure
In September 1876, a newly built lumber wharf in Seattle collapsed under the weight of its own laborers, sending Chinese workers and timber plunging into the Duwamish River. The disaster exposed the rotting reality of territorial construction and the precarious lives of immigrant labor.
- The English Sparrow Has Invaded Seattle — and the Songbirds Are Next
An 1895 editorial warns that the imported sparrow, already a pest in Eastern cities, has reached Puget Sound and will drive out native birds.
- The Moth That Ate Washington's Apple Boom
Government experts blamed the codlin moth for ruining a quarter of the nation's apples each year. In Walla Walla and along the Snake River, some orchardists were already pulling up trees in despair.
- A City Under Siege by Caterpillars
Citizens are struggling to find a way to exterminate millions of caterpillars that are stripping local trees bare.
- War on the Teredo Worm
New experimental methods are required to protect wharf pilings from Puget Sound's destructive wood-boring pests.
- A Heartbreaking Loss on the Diamond
In a tense and expertly played game, Seattle edges out Tacoma 4–3 as a 'subtle fatality' continues to plague the Tacoma club.
- Saving the Piers from the Teredo Worm
A new industrial chemical process is proposed to protect Seattle's waterfront timber from marine parasites.
- The Strange 'Sea Monster' of Clay Street
A fisherman’s routine day at the docks ends with the haul of a mysterious, gelatinous creature.
- The Most Expensive School Bus in Washington
A railroad foreman in School District No. 32 gets a creative, if costly, solution for his son's commute.
- Teredo Worms Cut a Seattle Wharf Adrift
A shipworm-weakened pier at the foot of Dearborn Street collapsed into Elliott Bay, sending a warehouse down with a crash and leaving the wreckmaster to haul a floating dock back to shore.
- The Teredo Worm’s Silent Siege
A massive wheat warehouse on the Tacoma waterfront collapses after wood-boring pests hollowed out the foundation, echoing the vulnerability of the region's rapidly expanding infrastructure.