[3] The Pioneer was founded in Allahabad in 1865, by George Allen, an Englishman who had great success in the tea business in north-east India in the previous decade.

[5] In 1866, a supplement, the Pioneer Mail, consisting of "48 quarto-size pages," mostly of advertisements, was added to the publication.

Although he was later to be known for his interest in theosophy, he oversaw the transformation of the newspaper to one of exercising great influence in British India.

[5] Author Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), in his early 20s, worked at the newspaper office in Allahabad as an assistant editor from November 1887 to March 1889.

[8] On 17 October 2010, The Pioneer launched its Hindi version of the newspaper from Lucknow [3] and in May 2012, the paper inaugurated its Raipur bureau, beginning operations of its Chhattisgarh edition.