In 1896, Joseph L. Bristow, who later was elected U.S. senator, and Henry J. Allen, who later became an editor at the Wichita Beacon, Kansas governor, and U.S. senator decided to buy the weekly Evening Ottawa and turn it into a daily newspaper. The Evening Ottawa was free at first, distributed to nearly all of Ottawa, north and south of the Marais des Cygnes River.
In 1896, Joseph L. Bristow, who later became a U.S. senator, and Henry J. Allen, who later served as an editor at the Wichita Beacon, Kansas governor, and U.S. senator, decided to purchase the weekly Evening Ottawa and transform it into a daily newspaper.