The paper was founded on June 18, 1906, as
The Lake County Times. Its founder,
Simon McHie, was a native of a small town along the Niagara River in Canada. In 1933, the name was changed to
The Hammond Times, and it became an afternoon paper serving
Hammond,
Whiting, and
East Chicago. In May 1962, the McHie family sold the publication to Robert S. Howard of
Howard Publications. The paper expanded to all of northwest Indiana in 1967 and dropped Hammond from its masthead to become simply
The Times. Offices were moved to
Munster in 1989, and the paper began morning delivery and began printing different editions based on distribution region. The Howard papers were bought in April 2002 by
Lee Enterprises. ==Distribution==