About 1879 Thomas W. Prosch and Samuel L. Crawford had acquired ownership of it. Both had been printers from boyhood, and Mr. Prosch had gained much experience as a newspaper man in Olympia and Tacoma, and under their management it continued to grow in value and influence.
In 1881 the Post Publishing Company began the erection of a substantial brick building, two stories and basement on the northeast corner of Yesler Way and Post Street. As it was nearing completion negotiations were opened for a consolidation of the Post and Intelligencer, and this was effected October 1, 1881, with Thomas W. Prosch owner of one half and John Leary and George W. Harris each one quarter. The basement and lower story of the new building were used by the company and the upper story rented for offices.
This building continued to be the home of the paper under several managements, until the great fire of June 6, 1889, destroyed it and most of its plant.
Early in 1886 a joint stock company, consisting of Frederick J. Grant, C. B. Bagley, Griffith Davies, Jacob Furth, John H. McGraw, E. S. Ingraham, W. H. Hughes, Thomas Burke, and Dr. Thomas T. Miner, bought the Post-Intelligencer from T. W. Prosch. Grant continued editor-in-chief, Bagley was business manager, S. L. Crawford city editor and reporter, and E. S. Meany had charge of the carrier service.
Near the close of the same year L. S. J. Hunt purchased the controlling interest in the paper and assumed management at once. He had come to Seattle with large financial backing, determined to go into the newspaper field, and the majority of the stockholders, fearing he might establish another paper and make it a powerful rival, sold him their interests. He proceeded to spend money most lavishly upon it and soon built it up into a great paper.
In May, 1871, a small printing outfit that had been in use at Sitka, Alaska, was brought to Seattle, and for a few months the Seattle Times and Alaska Herald was printed from it.
Later this material became the nucleus of the office of the Puget Sound Dispatch, which was established by Beriah Brown and Charles H. Larrabee. The latter was then a prominent attorney in Seattle. He was among the killed at the time of an appalling tragedy at Tehachipe Pass, on the line of the Southern Pacific, between Los Angeles and San Francisco. He soon retired from the paper, leaving Beriah Brown in sole control, which he retained with an occasional intermission until about 1878, when it was merged with the Intelligencer.
Mr. Brown was one of the old school newspapermen, who were writers of editorials worthy of the greatest papers of the United States. He was a friend of Horace Greeley, the elder Bennett and others of the noted editors of a half century ago. He rarely wrote anything for his own paper. His custom was to go to the case and put his articles in type as he composed them. Few can realize the difficulties occasioned by the dual processes of thought thus brought into play. Local news is the life of all newspapers in young communities. This he could not purvey, nor was his business management a success.
Thaddeus Hanford, the eldest of the brothers of that name, in his early boyhood showed ability as a writer and after he had passed through college with honor he returned to Seattle and engaged in newspaper work. For a year or more he was the owner of the Intelligencer, but sold it about 1879 as is noted elsewhere.
One of the most widely known as well as popular of the old-time newspaper men was E. T. Gunn. He worked in the Oregonian office as early as 1851 and was one of its owners for a time. In 1855 he was engaged in newspaper work at Steilacoom. November 30, 1867, he started the Olympia Transcript and its publication was continued regularly until his death in 1883. The Transcript was the neatest and best-printed of all the early papers and for many years exerted much influence in political affairs of the territory. A split in the Republican party occurred in 1867 and was the cause of the Transcript being started, and for about six years while this schism continued it championed the cause of the "bolting wing" of the party. In 1872 an alliance between the bolters and the Democrats resulted in the overwhelming triumph of the fusion party, Judge O. B. McFadden being elected to Congress over Selucius Garfield, the Republican candidate. All the newspapers in Olympia were in sympathy with the fusionists, and this led to the organization of a company which established the Puget Sound Courier.