In 1878, after publishing the Intelligencer as a morning daily, printer Thaddeus Hanford bought the Daily Intelligencer for $8,000. Hanford also acquired Beriah Brown’s daily Puget Sound Dispatch and the weekly Pacific Tribune and folded both papers into the Intelligencer. In 1881, the Intelligencer merged with the Seattle Post. The names were combined to form the present-day name.[2]
The PI didn’t have rich east-siders as its key demographic. It was more in tune with the actual city’s zeitgeist.