On January 25, 1898, Seattle Ordinance 4764 authorizes the laying of a water main from Blaine Street and 3rd Avenue W to the Fort Lawton Army Post on Magnolia Bluff. This is the first system to run ou...
On February 17, 1898, Farmers Mutual Insurance Company files Articles of Incorporation and By-laws with the Washington Secretary of State. Later renamed Mutual of Enumclaw, it is the oldest mutual ins...
On March 7, 1898, more than 500 reindeer arrive at Woodland Park in Seattle for a layover on their journey from Norway to Alaska and Canada's Yukon River. The U.S. Army Reindeer Service conceived of u...
On April 10, 1898, Seattle Police Officer Thomas L. Roberts (1862-1898) is murdered by ex-convict Richard H. Lee near 18th Avenue and Jefferson Street. Officer George E. Deigh is wounded in a gunbattl...
On Thursday, April 21, 1898, Everett Public Library opens its doors to the public for the first time. The library has been in development for four years as its backers worked to provide an open and ac...
On May 1, 1898, the First Washington Volunteer Infantry Regiment musters at Camp Rogers south of Tacoma for the Spanish-American War. Governor John P. Rogers (1897-1901) appoints U.S. Army First Lieut...
On May 25, 1898, the Moran Shipyard in Seattle completes 12 steamships for the Klondike Gold Rush. They leave en masse for Alaska.
On June 2, 1898, M. H. Joseph arrives in Republic, located in Ferry County in North Central Washington. Joseph arrives along with another Jewish man, Simon Bazinski, and they begin what will eventuall...
On June 17, 1898, Dutch settler D. J. Zylstra (1859-1943) moves to Lynden, in northwestern Whatcom County, where he will play a pivotal role in shaping both the town's Dutch community and Lynden itsel...
On June 30, 1898, when news arrives in Republic and elsewhere that the south half of the Colville Reservation has been thrown open to mineral claims, a stampede ensues. Hundreds of gold prospectors in...
On June 30, 1898, ship builders, sea captains, government officials, merchants, fishing boat operators, and lumber tycoons gather at Westport to dedicate the 107-foot Grays Harbor Lighthouse. This is ...
In August 1898, Mary B. Mason returns to Seattle from the Yukon with $5,000 in gold dust. She is thought to be the first black woman to go to the Yukon in the gold rush of 1897.
On September 18, 1898, Tacoma's Western Washington Industrial Exposition building burns to the ground. The building, built in early 1891, was the largest frame building on the West Coast. The mammoth ...
On October 10, 1898, at about 7 p.m., a fight breaks out in downtown Everett between James Wright Connella (1859-1939), editor of the Everett News, and Ole Nelson (1861-1898), a wood and coal dea...
On October 21, 1898, Washington State officially charters Seattle College, now Seattle University. The College is an outgrowth of Seattle's original Jesuit school, Immaculate Conception, founded in 18...
On November 25, 1898, King County Superior Court approves the condemnation of land along the proposed route of the Lake Washington Ship Canal in Seattle. The court is acting on a petition from the Kin...
In December 1898, the towns Sedro and Woolley, located adjacent to one another in Skagit County, merge. The two battling towns had stood side by side for nearly a decade, duplicating each other's gove...
On December 28, 1896, the Good Highways Convention meets at the Seattle Chamber of Commerce to promote better roads in the state. Attended by regional officials and parties interested in seeing the st...
In 1899, Local Council No. 1 of the National Council of Afro-Americans organizes in Seattle with Conrad Rideout as president.
In 1899, the University of Washington School of Law admits William McDonald Austin. He becomes the first Black graduate of the school.
During 1899, horseshoers in Seattle organize a union.
On January 1, 1899, Seattle shingle weavers form a union.
In 1899, four years after the Northern Pacific reached Hoquiam's sister city of Aberdeen, it was extended into Hoquiam, thus completing the capitalist project begun a decade earlier. Although its ear...
In October 1899, the Young Men's Christian Association of Seattle opens the city's first full-fledged vocational school, with a staff of 15 teachers offering instruction in 27 different subjects. Clas...