T. B. Walker

T. B. Walker was the son of Platt Walker and Anstis Keziah (Barlow) Walker (1814–1883), a sister of New York State Senator Thomas Barlow (1805–1896). He was born in Xenia, Ohio, in 1840, where in 1849 he got his first job in a bakery cutting biscuits. 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.

In 1854, his mother married Oliver Barnes and in 1855 his family moved to Berea, Ohio, where while traveling for Fletcher Hulet, he was able to study mathematics intermittently and Newton's Principia at Baldwin University. When he finished college at age 19, he filled a contract in Paris, Illinois for railroad ties. He then taught school and then became a traveling salesman of grindstones. He is remembered as a man of "strong opinions" who would not eat grapefruit and who slept with a pistol under his pillow. His brother Platt Bayless Walker II founded Mississippi Valley Lumberman, a magazine. He had another brother and two sisters: Oliver W. Barnes, Adelaide B. Walker, and Helen M. Walker.

Walker married his college classmate and boss's daughter Harriet Granger Hulet in 1863. They had eight children and lived in Minneapolis at first in a home on the east side rented for $9 per month. Their children were Gilbert M. (1864–1928), Julia A. (1865?–1952?), Leon B. (1868–1887), Harriet (1870–1904), Fletcher L. (1872–1962), Willis J. (1873–1943), Clinton L. (1875–1944), and Archie D. (1882–1971). The Walkers celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1913. One of Walker's grandsons was Olympic hurdler Walker Smith.

Walker's many business ventures and associations included the Crookston Boom and Water Power Company, the International Lumber Company in Minneapolis, the Metropolitan Trust Company in Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Central City Market Company, the Minneapolis Esterly Harvester Company, the Minnesota and Dakota Elevator Company in Minneapolis, the National Lumber Convention in Washington, D.C., the Northern Minnesota Log Driving & Boom Company, the Northwestern Elevator Company in Minneapolis, Pacific Investment Company, and the Waland Lumber Company. Walker was president of the Flour City National Bank in Minneapolis from 1887 to 1894. He was one of the incorporators of Edison Light & Power Co. He was one of the managers of the State Reform School in Saint Paul. He was involved in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915.

Walker was a trustee of the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church (now known as the Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church in Minneapolis), a member of the Executive Committee of the Methodist Episcopal General Conference in Minneapolis, and a president of the Minneapolis Methodist Church Extension Society. He was a member of the executive committee of the See America League, a president of Walker Galleries, Inc., a president and a trustee of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, president of the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences and its successor, the Minnesota Academy of Science where he donated boxes of specimens, and a trustee of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) of the City of Minneapolis.

Butler, Mills & Walker, later L. Butler & Company, reestablished as Butler & Walker, lumber 1869–1872

Camp & Walker 1877–1887, Pacific Mill 1877–1887

Walker & Akeley 1887

Red River Lumber Company (RRLC) 1883–1897, California 1912–1944

Akeley, Minnesota (developed town), also mill 1899–1915

Westwood, California (company town) approx. 1912–1913 to retirement

Walker, Minnesota was named for him