For most of the time it was publishing, The Washington Star was the city's newspaper of record and the longtime home to columnist Mary McGrory and cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman.

It was originally headquartered on "Newspaper Row" on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. Tate initially named the paper The Daily Evening Star.

In 1867, a three-man consortium of Crosby Stuart Noyes, Samuel H. Kauffmann and George W. Adams acquired the paper, with each of the investors putting up $33,333.33.

The cartoons satirized both Democrats and Republicans and covered topics such as drought, farm relief, and food prices; representation of the District of Columbia in Congress; labor strikes and legislation; campaigning and elections; political patronage; European coronations; the America's Cup; and the atomic bomb.

Nearly all top editorial and business staff jobs were held by members of the owning families, including a Kauffmann general manager who had gained a reputation for anti-Semitism, driving away advertisers.

Suburbanization and competition with television news were other factors for declining circulation and staffing; Carl Bernstein reflected in his 2021 memoir that the Star "couldn't get the paper out to the newer postwar suburbs until late in the afternoon" because "delivery trucks got tied up in rush hour traffic.

For a short period of time after the merger, both "The Evening Star" and "The Washington Daily News" mastheads appeared on the front page.

In 1973, the Star was targeted for clandestine purchase by interests close to the South African Apartheid government in its propaganda war, in what became known as the Muldergate Scandal.

In 1974, pro-apartheid Michigan newspaper publisher John P. McGoff attempted to purchase The Washington Star for $25 million, but he and his family received death threats, and the sale did not go through.

Due to the manner in which Allbritton's takeover was structured, the FCC considered it to be an ownership change, and stripped the WMAL stations of their grandfathered protection.

The Star lacked the resources to produce the sort of ultra-local coverage zonal editions demanded and ended up running many of the same regional stories in all of its local sections.

[8] Writers who worked at the Star in its last days included Michael Isikoff, Howard Kurtz, Fred Hiatt, Jane Mayer, Chris Hanson, Jeremiah O'Leary, Chuck Conconi, Crispin Sartwell, Maureen Dowd, novelist Randy Sue Coburn, Michael DeMond Davis, Lance Gay, Jules Witcover, Jack Germond, Judy Bachrach, Lyle Denniston, Fred Barnes, Gloria Borger, Kate Sylvester, and Mary McGrory.