Native of Walnut, Illinois, where he attended high school, Don Marquis was first a journalist, writing for the Washington Times in 1900. Moving to Philadelphia in 1902, he got employed by different newspapers as a freelancer, before moving again the same year to Atlanta, where he became an Associate Editor of the Atlanta News. In 1907, two years before he would marry Reina Melcher, he was an Assistant Editor at Uncle Remus Magazine.