Richest Man In West

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 420, 31 July 1928, Page 9

Richest Man In West

Lumberman Walker Dead s Fortune Exceeded Twenty Millions (United P.A. — By Telegraph — Copyright) (United Service) Received 9.5 a.m. MINNEAPOLIS, Monday. THE death lias occurred of Thomas Barlow Walker, lumberman, philanthropist, art collector —and the richest man west of the Mississippi. His age was 89, and his fortune exceeded 3020,000,000.

Mr. Walker was born at Ohio, in 1840, the son of Platt Bayless and Anstis Keziah Barlow. He was educated at Baldwin University, Ohio, how the Baldwin-Wallace College, and married Harriet G. Hulet, of Berea. They had several children. Mr. Barlow first taught school, and later became a travelling salesman. He went to Minneapolis in 1562, and was engaged on Government surveys, and later on survey • for the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad. He was the largest operator in Minnesota timber lands, and pine lumbering operations, and he had extensive interests in California white and sugar pine. He did much for Minneapolis, and

long maintained the only free art gallery, attached to his home, that there was in either Europe or America. He presented to the city important collections of art. including over 500 oil paintings. 300 miniatures and over 7,000 art objects, consisting of pottery, porcelain, jades, etc., mostly from the tombs, ruins and temples of Syria. Egypt, Greece, Persia and Babylon. He built the central city market and the wholesale district which places Minneapolis in the front rank as a wholesale and retail market. He was a citizen of no mean city; and he had the added satisfaction of the knowledge that he had helped strongly to make Minneapolis.