After both success and the chaos of the 1871 Chicago Fire, the paper was relaunched in 1872 as the Chicago-based Inter Ocean, intended to appeal to upscale readers.

The Inter Ocean developed a family of semi-weekly, weekly and Sunday editions that were intended to become a definitive source of news for businesspeople throughout the American West, and in fact fulfilled that role for several decades.

The weakened paper fell in 1895 into the hands of Charles Yerkes, the notorious Chicago streetcar boss, who returned the newspaper to the partisan, subordinate role it had fulfilled in its youth.

[3] Hinman bought back the paper at a receiver's sale in May 1914 (which came about because Kolhsaat had failed to pay the balance owed on a note used to purchase the paper) and immediately sold it to James Keeley, then general manager of the Chicago Tribune, who also bought the Chicago Record Herald at the same time.

The paper's final home was a three-story headquarters built at 57 W. Monroe, completed in 1901 to designs by William Carbys Zimmerman.