Previously published daily, the print schedule was reduced to five days a week (Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays as a "Weekend Edition") in April 2020.
Launched December 17, 1896 as the Tri-State Independent Col. G. F. Friel of nearby Catlettsburg, Kentucky,[1] the newspaper moved to 12th Street and Greenup Avenue in Ashland in 1900 as the Ashland Daily Independent; it absorbed the Ashland Commercial in the move.
In 1920, it founded the Sunday Independent, and five years later, it doubled the size of its headquarters on 17th Street.
After years of publishing in the afternoon on weekdays (and morning on weekends), The Independent switched to all-morning publication in May 2003, and dropped the "Daily" and "Sunday" from its nameplate.
"The Sunday Independent" namesake was dropped again in April 2020, following the shift to printing a "Weekend Edition" on Saturdays.