Harry Chandler

Harry Chandler
Harry Chandler, publisher of The Los Angeles Times, greeting from Olvera Street children, 1938.
Born	(1864-05-17)May 17, 1864 Landaff, New Hampshire, U.S.
Died	September 23, 1944(1944-09-23) (aged 80)
Cause of death	Heart attack
Alma mater	Dartmouth College
Occupation	Newspaper publisher, investor, real estate owner
Spouse(s)	Magdalena Schlador Chandler (m. 1888-1892, her death) Marian Otis Chandler (m. 1894-1944, his death)
Children	(first marriage) Francesca Chandler Alice May Chandler (second marriage) Constance Chandler Ruth Chandler Norman Chandler Harrison Chandler Helen Chandler Philip Chandler
Parent(s)	Moses K. Chandler Emma J. Little Chandler
Relatives	Mike Chandler (great-grandson) Dorothy Buffum Chandler (daughter-in-law) Camilla Chandler (granddaughter) Otis Chandler (grandson) Harrison Gray Otis (father-in-law) Eliza Ann Wetherby Otis (mother-in-law)

Harry Chandler (May 17, 1864 – September 23, 1944) was an American newspaper publisher and investor who became owner of the largest real estate empire in the U.S.

Harry Chandler was born in Landaff, New Hampshire to Moses K. and Emma J. (Little) Chandler. He attended Dartmouth College, and on a dare, he jumped into a vat of starch that had frozen over during winter, which led to severe pneumonia. He withdrew from Dartmouth and moved to Los Angeles for his health.

In Los Angeles, while working in the fruit fields, he started a small delivery company that soon became responsible for also delivering many of the city's morning newspapers, which put him in contact with The Los Angeles Times publisher Harrison Gray Otis. Otis liked this entrepreneurial young man and hired him as the Times’ general manager. Harry married Otis’s daughter, Marian Otis, in 1894 (two years after the death of his first wife). The couple had six children together and also raised two daughters from Harry's first marriage. Upon Otis’s death in 1917, Harry took over the reins as publisher of the Times, transforming it into the leading newspaper in the West and at times the most successful. For three straight years in the 1920s, under his leadership, the Times led all other American newspapers in advertising space and in number of classified ads.

Much of his boundless energy and dreams were however directed to transforming Los Angeles. As a community builder and large-scale real estate speculator, he became arguably the leading citizen of Los Angeles in the first half of the 20th century. Chandler was directly involved with helping to found the following: the Los Angeles Coliseum (and bringing the 1932 Summer Olympics to L.A.), the Biltmore Hotel, the Douglas Aircraft Company, the Hollywood Bowl, The Ambassador Hotel, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the Automobile Club of Southern California, KHJ radio station, Trans World Airlines, the San Pedro Harbor, the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the California Club, The Pacific Electric Cars, the Los Angeles Art Association, the Santa Anita Park racetrack, the Los Angeles Steamship Company, the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park, and the restoration of downtown’s Olvera Street and Chinatown.