The Times Archive

The Washington Times was founded on March 18, 1894, by union printers. On July 4, 1895, owners renamed it the Morning Times. Financial difficulties, however, soon forced the printers to sell to Charles G. Conn, a Democratic congressman from Indiana. On August 5, 1895, the Evening Times was added, and the two editions sold as a combined subscription. The morning edition continued as The Times from March 12, 1897, to June 29, 1901, before being renamed the Washington Times.

Conn sold the morning and evening editions in late 1896 to Washington Post founder Stilson Hutchins (1830-1912). In 1901 Frank A. Munsey (1854-1925), who was known for his consolidation practices and within the newspaper business as a destroyer of the dailies, purchased the paper and ran it from the Munsey Building, which he had built on E Street in the northwest quadrant of the city. Munsey ceased printing the morning edition in November, 1902, and his evening and Sunday editions became known, simply, as the Washington Times (not to be confused with the present-day paper of the same title).

Shortly after its founding, the evening edition soon became dominant, substantially surpassing the morning paper's circulation. This late afternoon edition competed with the Evening Star as the largest daily in the capital city, both of them recording a circulation of over 40,000. The politically Democratic Evening Times covered local stories as well as foreign news culled from wire services. It often featured a society or crime article on the front page and included a daily weather map, sports, gossip, women's news, and news of sundry federal agencies and the activities of civil servants. Beginning in 1901 the newspaper also published fiction, Sunday comics, and true adventure stories. That year, advertising moved to the forefront, often appearing prominently on the front page.

The newspaper claimed to have the timeliest coverage of national elections and foreign news reports. Local issues dominate the news beyond the first page, but sports and business news were also featured. The Times reported heavily on the changing landscape in Washington at the turn of the twentieth century, with frequent stories on city planning and urbanization activities, the development of the national Mall, alley and tenement reform, sanitary improvements, road building and repairs.

William Randolph Hearst gained control of the Times in 1917 through his agent Arthur Brisbane and five years later merged it with the newly acquired Washington Herald. A combined Sunday edition of both papers was published as the Washington Times-Herald in 1922 and 1923, and then a combined Sunday edition was published as the Washington Herald until 1937. A combined daily and Sunday edition, called the Washington Times-Herald, began publication February 1, 1939. That paper merged with the Post in 1954.