Thomas Barlow Walker (February 1, 1840 – July 28, 1928) was an American business magnate who acquired lumber in Minnesota and California and became an art collector.

[1] He had accompanied his parents and siblings west from New York when his father died of cholera in 1849 at Westport, Missouri, on their way to the California gold fields to seek their fortune.

[3][4] In 1854, his mother married Oliver Barnes and in 1855 his family moved to Berea, Ohio, where while traveling for Fletcher Hulet,[5] he was able to study mathematics intermittently and Newton's Principia[5][6] at Baldwin University.

[4] He arrived at Saint Paul where he met and sold grindstones, once to James Jerome Hill, then employed as a clerk who carefully sorted them for the buyer.

[5] Within one hour of his arrival in Minneapolis, he was hired as a chainman[3] to George B. Wright, who was surveying federal pine lands in the north of the state.

[2] His work took him away from home for long periods,[4] and it gave him intricate knowledge of what property to buy in northern Minnesota.

[3] He began to acquire pine land in 1867, but without capital of his own, he partnered at first with Dr. Levi Butler and Howard W. Mills and later with others.

Camp, in 1877 Walker bought the Pacific Mill,[3] a sawmill constructed in 1866 at the foot of 1st Avenue North on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, which they owned for ten years before dissolving their partnership amicably.

[3] His oldest sons Gilbert and Leon[11] became partners with Walker[12] and the company built more mills in Crookston, Minnesota and at Grand Forks, Dakota Territory.

[4] Walker built the commercial market in Minneapolis, renowned at the time, into the best produce market in the U.S.[2] He is also "primarily responsible" for building the Minneapolis Public Library system, first with donations and as a stockholder[5] in the Athenaeum Library Association and later with public property tax.

[15] The house and its eight additions covered nearly a city block[1] but were later demolished to build a complex that includes the State Theatre.

[3] His paintings included 15 American landscapes,[16] 103 portraits of Native American chiefs, medicine men and warriors, and 24 portraits of renowned cowboys, scouts and guides,[17] alongside traditional works by Raphael, Rembrandt, Holbein, Ingres, Titian, Bonheur, Turner and Michelangelo and dozens of other artists.

[18] Some of these paintings proved to be fakes and some were genuine—certainly, a landscape by Frederic Edwin Church sold for $8.5 million in a 1989 Sotheby's New York auction.

[3] Speaking of the 25 to 30 people who founded the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, Donald Torbert wrote: "Today it is impossible to assess, with anything approaching justice, the worth of the individual contributions, because each person was indispensable.

"[19]During the early 20th century, Walker published catalogs of his art collection[18] which he wanted to give to the city of Minneapolis.

[3] Walker wanted to build a large public library and an arts and sciences institution but the city failed to provide financial support[20]—the Minnesota legislature authorized bonds for $500,000 but only half of them sold.

[22] A gallery across the street at Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church holds several of the works in his collection by 16th- and 19th-century European masters, which Walker donated to decorate the Sunday school.

[6] In 1886, with Calvin Goodrich, Jr. and Henry Francis Brown, Walker founded the Minneapolis Land and Investment Company and became its president.

[4] By 1888, the company advertised 12,000 lots on their 1,700 acres (6.9 km2), just west of the city limits near Bde Maka Ska, with the industry "in the marsh".

The Industrial Circle exists today at Dakota and Walker Streets in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, near the intersection of Highway 7 and Louisiana.

[4] His dream of a large downtown St. Louis Park disappeared in twelve years, but to that end he had built a Methodist church (which later burned),[24] the Walker/Syndicate[25] building (still standing),[26] the St. Louis Park Hotel (which the village later demolished),[27] The Great Northern Hotel (which later burned down)[27] and a streetcar line to Minneapolis.

[4] According to the St. Louis Park Historical Society, Walker could be seen "giving out food during the Depression, but people shied away from him and even despised him".

In 1912 RRLC signed an agreement with the Southern Pacific Railroad giving them the right to build a line (the Fernley and Lassen Railway) and exclusive right to haul lumber.

[4] Westwood included houses, apartments, dormitories, hotels, a community center, a department store, churches, and a theater.

[4] Archie was Minneapolis-based and during his tenure on November 30, 1944, the Westwood mill and town were sold to the Fruit Growers Supply Company, the buying arm of today's Sunkist.