He was born in the Town of Wauwatosa, Milwaukee County, Wis. , the son of Franz and Louise (Wahl) Falk. He was the fourth son and fifth child in a family of seven sons and one daughter.
His father learned the cooperage and brewing trades in his native Bavaria before emigrating to Milwaukee in 1848 and settling in the Town of Wauwatosa about 1857.
Otto Falk attended the German-English Academy in Milwaukee and Northwestern College, Watertown, Wisconsin, and in 1884 graduated from the Allen Military Academy in Chicago.
He worked in Milwaukee breweries until 1856, when he formed a partnership with Frederick Goes and started the Bavaria brewery, under the firm name of Goes & Falk, in the Town of Wauwatosa.
In 1866 he purchased his partner's interest and operated the business alone until his death in 1882.
A notable military career followed. In March 1886 he was commissioned adjutant of the Fourth Battalion, Wisconsin National Guard. Promotions came in rapid succession.
On January 24, 1887, he was appointed by Governor Jeremiah M. Rusk as aide-de-camp on his staff with the rank of colonel. He became quarter master-general with the rank of brigadier general in 1891 and served as state adjutant-general from December 1893 until his retirement in January 1895.
As a militia officer he showed particular skill in dealing with labor unrest.
In July 1892 he was ordered by Governor George W. Peck to Merrill, Wisconsin, where he settled a strike in the lumber mills in a few days without the aid of troops.
In August 1893 he was sent to Ashland and within two days ended a longshoremen's strike to the satisfaction of all concerned.
In July 1894, when the Pullman Strike led to bitter clashes between railway workers and militia forces in Chicago and other midwest cities, Falk succeeded in avoiding violence in Wisconsin, except for a brief disorder at Spooner.
During the Spanish-American War Falk was commissioned major and chief quartermaster of the Third Army Corps, United States Volunteers.
In December 1898 he became special inspector of the Quartermaster Department, United States Army, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Honorably discharged on June 20, 1899, he rejoined the Wisconsin National Guard, from which he was finally retired in January 1911 with the rank of brigadier general.
Meanwhile Falk had also begun a distinguished business career. Starting at the age of twenty as apprentice in his father's brewery, he continued in various capacities until its acquisition by the Pabst Brewing Company in 1892.
In 1893 he organized the Wisconsin Milling Company, serving as its general manager until 1898.
In April 1912 Falk was appointed receiver for the Allis-Chalmers Company, West Allis, Wis. Upon its reorganization as the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company, in March 1913, he was chosen as president, an office he retained until 1932, when he became chairman of the board of directors. His genius for organizing mass production led to marked growth of the company.
Long established branches of machine manufacture--steam and electrical, milling, mining, crushing, cement and road-making machinery--were pushed ahead, both in volume and in engineering improvements.
New lines were added, including tractors, harvesters, and agricultural machinery. The company's manufacturing facilities and sales organization were greatly expanded in the United States and abroad.
After suffering a heart attack in November 1939, Falk died six months later of a cerebral hemorrhage at his home in Milwaukee. He was buried in Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee.
In 1895 he and a younger brother, Herman Wahl Falk, organized the Falk Manufacturing Company (after 1921 the Falk Corporation), steel founders and manufacturers of special machinery, in which (save during the Spanish-American War) he served as vice-president until his death. From 1909 to 1912 he was president of the Milwaukee Association of Commerce.
Although he was influential in the Republican party, he declined to seek public office.
A man of dynamic energy, but of unhurried manner and unfailing courtesy, Falk was a master of organization.
He had married, on December 10, 1901, Elisabeth A. Vogel of Milwaukee, by whom he had two children, Elisabeth Louise and Otto Herbert.
