Wheelock Whitney, Sr.

Who was Wheelock Whitney, Sr.?

Wheelock "Wheels" Whitney was a Republican businessman and philanthropist and the scion of a powerful Minnesota family. He graduated from Phillips Andover Academy in 1913.

His oldest son, Wheelock "Whee" Whitney, Jr. is a Minneapolis philanthropist, who was the 1964 Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Minnesota, losing to Eugene McCarthy, and he was the Republican nominee for governor of Minnesota in 1982. He was part-owner and president of the Minnesota Vikings football team for a number of years.

His second son was John Kimball "Kim" Whitney, a Minnesota philanthropist, and a long-time board member of the Boy Scouts of America, who died November 8, 2010, aged 83.

His grandsons include Wheelock Whitney III, an art historian and philanthropist; Benson Whitney, the former U.S. ambassador to Norway; and Connecticut Green Party politician Charles Pillsbury of Doonesbury fame.