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.
The Evening Ottawa was initially a free weekly newspaper distributed throughout Ottawa, Kansas, before being transformed into a daily publication by Joseph L. Bristow and Henry J. Allen in 1896.