Otis Arkwright Pray was born on February 28, 1833, in Livermore, Maine, son of Otis and Eliza Allen (Weeks) Pray. He was apprenticed to Daniel Beebe, a millwright at Lewiston, Maine. He later formed a partnership with Beebe, working for three years in Maine before coming to Minnesota in 1857. In 1858 he began work for W. D. Washburn on the Minneapolis Mill Company. Pray became a prominent mill builder in the Northwest and also developed the middlings purifier and other mill machinery. On Pray's advice, Charles A. Pillsbury installed the newer roller process in his mills. Pray built the Cataract, Palisade, and Crown Roller mills in Minneapolis and mills at Afton and St. Cloud. He operated companies under the names Webster and Pray, and O. A. Pray and Company, which supplied mill equipment and machinery.
In 1858 he married Frances Adeline Fenderson of Maine. They had one son, Albert Fenderson Pray. Otis A. Pray died in Minneapolis on March 17, 1890.
From the guide to the Otis A Pray papers., 1850-1964., (Minnesota Historical Society)
