The Times was first published on December 4, 1881, as the Los Angeles Daily Times under the direction of Nathan Cole Jr. and Thomas Gardiner. However, they were unable to keep up with the financial demands of printing a newspaper.

In July 1882, Harrison Gray Otis moved from Santa Barbara to become the paper’s editor. Despite turning the paper into a conservative one, Otis made the Times a financial success.

Otis constantly insulted local unions, and they retaliated. Two union leaders, James, and Joseph McNamara, led a group of railroad union workers in the bombing of the Times headquarters on October 1, 1910, killing twenty-one people.