The Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul Railroad ran a track through Adams County in 1907. In 1912, a hotel was built for the railroad workers. That hotel would be later known as the Old Hotel and Art Gallery. The railroad officially platted the town as a stop, with water to feed the boilers of steam trains. They kept the name Othello, and built a railyard and wooden roundhouse there. Although the roundhouse burned in 1919, it was replaced with a brick structure which lasted many years. Businesses and settlers continued to follow, and the town was incorporated May 31, 1910. At the time the railroad was the eastern terminus of the second electrified district of the Milwaukee Road's "Pacific Extension" route, which extended up to Tacoma, Washington.