
The Pittsburgh Press began as The Evening Penny
Press owned by a group of investors led by Thomas Keenan. The first issue was printed
on June 23, 1884 and the paper found success in a market dominated by publications
costing two or three cents per edition. The title of the newspaper was changed to the
Pittsburg Press on October 19, 1887. It wasn't until 1921 that the 'h' was added to the
newspaper's name.
In 1901, ownership of the Press passed to a
syndicate led by Oliver S. Hershman, who retained control until selling the company to
the Scripps-Howard national chain in 1923. The afternoon daily grew to be the second
largest newspaper in Pennsylvania, behind the Philadelphia Inquirer.


A large Sunday edition was also quite popular, in
later years containing an enlarged color comics section that included the likes of Joe
Palooka, Prince Valiant and Blondie, along with a variety of inserted magazines, including
the Press TV Guide, Family, Roto, and Weekly sections.
In 1927 a new, modern four-story facility was built
at 34 Boulevard of the Allies, at a cost of $4 million. In 1961, the Press entered into a
Joint Operating Agreement with the competing Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which had previously purchased and merged with the
Hearst Corporation's Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph.
This left just the Post-Gazette and the much larger
Pittsburgh Press as the city's major publications. Under the agreement, the Post-Gazette
became a six-day morning paper, and the Pittsburgh Press remained an afternoon daily
in addition to the sole Sunday paper.

On October 2, 1992, due in large part to union labor
difficulties, the Pittsburgh Press company was put up for sale and purchased by Block
Communications, owners of the Post-Gazette, leaving Pittsburgh with just one daily
newspaper. The final edition of the Pittsburgh Press had been published on July 28 of that
year.
Sale of the Pittsburgh Press was final on November
30, 1992, and the first edition of the Post-Gazette, which absorbed many of the Press'
personnel and the majority the it's circulation, was published on January 18,
1993.

For four years beginning on November 14, 2011, the
owners of the Post-Gazette revived the Pittsburgh Press name with an afternoon
online-only edition. This was done due to the overwhelming popularity of the former
Pittsburgh paper, despite it's being out of publication for almost twenty years.
Unlike most online publications, this version was
presented in the look and format of a traditional newspaper. The online Pittsburgh Press
met with only mild success and was discontinued on September 25, 2015.

A Journey Through The
Pittsburgh Press - 1928


















The former Press/Post-Gazette building in
January 2020, twenty-eight years after the Pittsburgh Press ceased
publication and five years after the Post-Gazette moved out for their new home
on the North Shore.
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