The Alaska Times begins publishing in Seattle on October 24, 1870.

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On October 24, 1870, T. G. Murphy moves his newspaper from Alaska and begins publishing The Alaska Times in Seattle. It joins The Weekly Intelligencer as one of two newspapers being published in Seattle.

Shortly after the United States gained possession of Alaska in 1867, T. G. Murphy established The Alaska Times in Sitka, Alaska. Apparently the enterprise was not profitable. Murphy moved the paper to Seattle and started publishing on October 24, 1870. A few issues later, Murphy renamed the paper Territorial Dispatch and Alaska Times. Later still, he changed the name again to Puget Sound Dispatch. Murphy sold the paper to Charles H. Larrabee and Beriah Brown (1815-1900) on September 19, 1871.

In 1878, the Intelligencer bought it out.

Sources:
Thomas Prosch, "A Chronological History of Seattle from 1850 to 1897" (Typescript, dated 1900-1901, Northwest Collection, University of Washington Library, Seattle), 205-206, 222.
Note: This essay was corrected on March 5, 2009.

By Greg Lange, July 29, 1999

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Beriah Brown (1815-1900), ca. 1878
Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives