Thomas Edwin Ricks (July 21, 1828 – September 28, 1901) was a prominent Mormon pioneer, a community leader, and a settler of the western United States.

Ricks stayed with his family for two years in Council Bluffs while Brigham Young took the first group of Mormon Pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley.

On May 29, 1848, Ricks left Winter Quarters, Nebraska headed for the Salt Lake Valley in Heber C. Kimball's company.

[2] On June 6, 1848, a group of Native Americans raided Ricks' pioneer company, stealing some of their cattle.

In 1856, returning from a colonizing mission in Las Vegas, Nevada, he immediately left to be part of the rescue party sent from Salt Lake to assist the stranded Martin Handcart Company near the Sweetwater River.

He is known as the founder of Rexburg, Idaho, and participated in the founding of the Bannock Stake Academy, which would eventually evolve into Brigham Young University–Idaho.

Joseph F. Smith, LDS Church president, said of him at his funeral, "It may be a long time before we find another man his equal in honor, mind, and unswerving loyalty to the cause of God and his people.