Journalist, Newspaper Entrepreneur. He was the owner and editor-in-chief of the "Los Angeles Times" from 1886 until after World War I, was also a commanding conservative political force in turn-of-the-century Southern California, and an unequaled promoter of regional growth. Born the youngest of 16 children, he was a descendant of the Massachusetts Bay Colony political activist James Otis, who was credited with saying, "taxation without representation is tyranny!" He had little formal education, worked as a printer's apprentice during his teens and then studied briefly at a commercial college in nearby Columbus. Following relocating to Kentucky, he became an active member of the newly formed Republican Party. Otis married Eliza A. Wetherby in 1859. In 1860, at age 23, he served as a delegate to the National Republican Convention, which nominated Abraham Lincoln as candidate for the office of President of the United States. During the American Civil War, he volunteered for the Union army, served with a young William McKinley in the 23rd Ohio Infantry, and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. After holding several Federal positions in Washington, D.C., he arrived in Santa Barbara, California in 1876 where he edited the "Santa Barbara Press" for several years. After relocating to Los Angeles, he purchased in 1882 a minority interest in the newspaper "Los Angeles Times" and by 1886 had full control. He edited the newspaper with an iron fist for the next three decades and became one of the most powerful figures in southern California. His wife wrote articles for the newspaper on the subjects of religion, women's issues, and education. In 1885, the "Times" printed its first "Midwinter" edition commending the climate and other virtues of Southern California at a time when cheap cross-country railway fares brought in thousands of visitors and homesteaders. He foresaw a magnificent future for Los Angeles with its population of 12,000 when he joined the "Times." Through the "Times," he was an early promoter of a 1907 $23 million bond issue to build a 225-mile aqueduct to carry Owens River water to Los Angeles, which discharged its first water in 1913. A syndicate that included Otis had already acquired some 47,000 acres of grain fields in the San Fernando Valley in anticipation of both the arrival of water and Valley annexation to Los Angeles, which was promoted by the "Times." They divided the acreage into town lots creating a sales boom that formed the foundation of the Harry Chandler family fortune. He made his newspaper a voice of Republican interests, strongly opposing labor unions. For this opposition, on October 1, 1910, the newspaper office and his home were bombed, killing 21 people. Two brothers pled guilty of the crime. The newspaper office was relocated to the Times Building, which is a Los Angeles landmark. A second attempt at his life happened three years later when a ticking bomb was sent to him through the United States mail service, but there was no explosion. He witnessed Los Angeles growing from a frontier town to a major urban area with more than a half-million people. Championing the declaration of war on Spain in 1898, he volunteered, serving in the Spanish-American War in the Philippines as a brigadier general. In 1914 he transferred the controlling interest of the "Times" to his daughter and son-in-law, Marian and Harry Chandler. His son-in-law Harry Chandler was trained to be his successor after his death. His descendants continued to control the newspaper and the Times Mirror Company until June of 2000 when the company was sold to the Tribune Company. He willed his Wilshire Boulevard home to the city of Los Angeles for advancement of the arts, which housed the state's first independent public art school, the Otis Art Institute, until 1997 when the school moved to a larger location. His home was demolished.