The Press-Citizen was formed in 1920 after the merger of two newspapers: the DemocraticIowa State Press, founded in 1860, and the RepublicanIowa City Citizen, founded in 1891. Merritt Spiedel bought the Press-Citizen in 1921; Spiedel's company merged with the Gannett Company in 1977.
The Press-Citizen switched from afternoon to morning publication on September 15, 1997. On August 29, 1999, the Press-Citizen began publishing a Sunday edition that includes local news and sports sections packaged with the Sunday state edition of another Gannett newspaper, The Des Moines Register.[2]