Died 1948 | ||
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Otto Praeger (February 27, 1871 - 1948) was the Washington, DC postmaster from 1913 to 1915 and was the second assistant United States Postmaster General from 1915 to 1921. He was responsible for implementing airmail from 1918 to 1927.
Biography
He was born in Victoria, Texas on February 27, 1871 to Herman Praeger and Louisa Schultze. He attended the public schools in San Antonio, Texas then the University of Texas. In 1889 he started work as a newspaper reporter, then an editor. He married Annie C. Hardesty on February 27, 1897.
On December 10, 1919 he testified before the U.S. House Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads where he requested $3 million for the creation and operation of airmail routes between the following cities: New York and San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee, New York and Atlanta, St. Louis and Minneapolis. In the same year Air Mail Service pilots went on strike when asked to fly unsafe airplanes in zero visibility weather, and they were fired by Praeger.
He died in 1948.