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]
When it was in print I used to read it every day at work since it was in the break room and this was before I had a smart phone (they were around, I just didn’t have one). I miss it, I always preferred it over the Seattle Times though I couldn’t tell you what about it was preferable.
The PI didn’t have rich east-siders as its key demographic. It was more in tune with the actual city’s zeitgeist.