Walter Ansel Strong (1883–1931) was the publisher of the Chicago Daily News during Prohibition and the early days of the Great Depression. He was an innovator in business and a prominent civic leader.

Walter Strong was born in Chicago on August 13, 1883, to Dr. Albert Bliss Strong and Ida Cook Strong. His father, a Union Army veteran, taught at Rush Medical College for many years, and later maintained a private medical practice. His mother was a conservatory-trained pianist and singer. She was the adopted daughter of Ansel B. and Helen Cook. Ansel was a stone masonry contractor who served on the Chicago City Council and in the Illinois State Legislature. In retirement, Cook built a large second home in Libertyville, Illinois, thirty miles north of Chicago.

Strong's early years were marked by tragedy. Three of his five siblings died of natural causes during childhood. His father had mental health issues, quite possibly bipolar disorder, and needed intermittent institutional care beginning when Walter was twelve years old. The stress of these events caused Strong's mother to leave Chicago in 1895 and move to Libertyville where she had a cottage adjacent to her father's property. A divorce decree, which her husband sought and which she did not oppose, was issued in 1896. In 1898, Strong's mother moved permanently to the Los Angeles, California area, with Strong's youngest brother in her custody.

With the break-up of the family and his father's illness, arrangements were made for Strong and his older brother, who were in their father's care, to reside in a group home operated by the West Side YMCA. Walter finished his final year of high school during his first year of residency there, graduating from the West Division Street School in 1899. During that time, family relatives supported the two young boys, particularly after their father's death following involuntary confinement in the State Hospital for the Insane in Kankakee (now Kankakee State Hospital) in March 1900.

One of their father's first cousins, Jessie Bradley, had married Victor Lawson, the publisher of the Chicago Daily News. She and her husband were among those who saw to it that Walter and his brother were afforded opportunities they otherwise might not have had. During their first year of residence at the West Side YMCA, Strong and his brother were newsboys for the Daily News, hawking papers after school on Madison Avenue streetcars for food money. Beginning the summer after high school, Walter was given a part-time job as a clerk at Lawson's morning newspaper, the Chicago Record. Walter held this job while he attended night classes at the Lewis Institute (now the Illinois Institute of Technology), which awarded him a degree in civil engineering in 1901.

In the fall of 1902, Strong entered Beloit College in Wisconsin as a sophomore. The Lawsons assisted his admission by guaranteeing his tuition. While attending Beloit, Strong supported himself with a variety of part-time jobs, including work at the Beloit Free Press. He also edited the student newspaper, and was art director for the Codex, the semi-annual yearbook. He was active in the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, where he formed lifelong friendships, and participated in a wide range of college sports and organizations. Strong accepted an offer from Mr. Lawson to join the staff at the Chicago Daily News shortly before he graduated.

Strong began his three-decade-long career at the Chicago Daily News as an audit clerk in August 1905. In 1908 he accompanied Victor Lawson to Europe as his secretary. Shortly thereafter, he became Lawson's office manager. In addition, Strong was given responsibility for overseeing the Chicago Daily News Fresh Air Fund Sanitarium, established by Jessie Lawson in 1887 for the benefit of poor urban children. Located on the lakefront at Fullerton Avenue, the sanitarium provided free transportation, health care, and meals daily except Sundays throughout the summer. Attendance averaged over 400 children daily, with “no one turned away for reason of class, color or condition.” Strong oversaw the construction of a new home for the sanitarium, a Prairie-style building designed by Dwight H. Perkins, which opened in 1920. When Strong became publisher in 1926, the building was winterized so it could operate year-round. The sanitarium was closed in 1937 and in 1952 it was converted into a theater now known as the Theater on the Lake.

In October 1909, Strong began attending evening classes at John Marshall Law School. He graduated in 1912 and was admitted to the bar. One of his law professors was Frank J. Loesch, with whom he would later collaborate on law enforcement and anti-corruption campaigns in Chicago. With the outbreak of WWI, when competition for newspaper readers became fierce, Lawson put Strong in charge of the circulation department of the paper. In recognition of his ability and dedication to the paper, Lawson made Strong business manager in 1921.