Walter Henry Ahrens was an industrialist born July 24, 1885 in Berlin (later Kitchener), Ontario to parents Henry Jacob Ahrens and Caroline Seiler. Walter moved to the United States as an adult and lived variously in Chicago, Arkansas and Oklahoma. He founded the Tulsa-based Southern Mill and Manufacturing Co., which produced per-fabricated homes, in 1919. The company first made its mark in the 1920s, building residential homes for oil companies with land leases, a relationship that continued into the 1930s with the growth of the drilling in the east Texas oil fields. Southern Mill and Manufacturing Co. was later awarded a grant from the Federal Works Agency, during World War II, to address the need for quickly available housing around defense plants. Outside of work, Ahrens helped established the Oaks Country Club, and was a member of the Kiwanis club and the Trinity Espiscopal Church, and served as direct of the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce and Fourth National Bank. Ahrens married Alberta Vivian Francisco January 17, 1906 in Winslow, Arkansas and together they had five children. He died May 30, 1959 in Tulsa, where he was buried.