The Ottawa Journal was a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Ottawa, Ontario from 1885 to 1980. It was founded in 1885 by A. Woodburn as the Ottawa Evening Journal. Its first editor was John Wesley Dafoe who came from the Winnipeg Free Press. In 1886, it was bought by Philip Dansken Ross. The paper began publishing a morning edition in 1917. In 1919, the paper's publishers bought the Ottawa Free Press. The former owner of that paper, E. Norman Smith, then became editor with Grattan O'Leary. Ottawa went without a second major newspaper until the debut of the Ottawa Sun in 1987.