Thomas A. Holmes

Thomas Andrew Holmes (March 4, 1804 – 1888) was an American surveyor, trader, and politician who served in the Minnesota Territorial House of Representatives from 1849 to 1850. He was involved in the foundation of numerous towns in Minnesota and Wisconsin, including Milwaukee. Holmes City, Minnesota, is named after him.

Biography Holmes was born in Pennsylvania in March 1804, one of five children. The family then moved to Northwest Ohio, around Marion.

Holmes and three other members of the family traveled to Milwaukee in 1835. The house that Holmes built on Water Street was the first frame dwelling on the East Side of the city. The following year they went down to the villages of Rockport and St. George, both part of what is now Janesville. Holmes and his brother, Joshua, filed the plat for the village of Rockport. They sold the land in 1839 and went separate ways, with most of the family staying in the area. He sold his land in 1846 and continued up the Mississippi, with the intention that he would continue trading with the Native Americans. The name came from Chief Shakopee, a leader of a band of Dakota there. When it was decided that it would be the county seat of Scott County, Holmes donated the land necessary for county government. He did something similar with the city of Chaska when it became the seat of Carver County, though he was never a permanent resident there. In 1858, Holmes led a group of settlers to what is now Holmes City, in Douglas County. The settlers named it after him.

Holmes died in Cullman, Alabama, in 1888.