Born in Millville, Ohio in 1866,
Landis was given his unusual name by his father, a Civil War surgeon
in the Union Army who had been at the battle of Kennesaw Mountain
in Georgia. After studying law in Cincinnati, Landis moved to Chicago
and graduated from Northwestern Law School in 1891. He practiced
law in Colorado and Chicago before he went to Washington D.C. as
secretary to the Secretary of State under President Grover Cleveland.
In 1905, he accepted an appointment to the federal bench, District
of Northern Illinois, from President Theodore Roosevelt. Landis
held this position until 1922 when he became the first Commissioner
of Baseball.
