
By Steve Prinsen
Harry Wahlquist, the founder of Star Bank, which has a Maple Lake location, died recently after a battle with pancreatic cancer at age 85.
Wahlquist, Edina, and a group of investors opened Star Bank on Highway 55 E in Annandale in the mid-2000s.
In October of 2003, he announced his intentions to open the bank, citing his long association with the Annandale area. Star Bank acquired the Maple Lake office of the First National Bank of Elk River in July 2012.
“My roots are small townish,” he said in an October 2003 Advocate article. “At the large corporate banks they often do what’s best for the bank and not the community.”
In the article, he noted that he spent summers at a family cabin on Bass Lake while attending college.
“I learned how to drive a car there and play golf,” among other things he said of Annandale. “The population sign was 1,234 for a long time; today it’s 2,684.”’
Eventually, he and his family had a summer home on Lake Sylvia as well.
Prior to buying and expanding his banks, he spent more than 30 years working at larger banks in the Minneapolis area.
His foray into community banking was purchasing in 1989 a bank in Bertha, which is about 30 miles northeast of Alexandria.
Today, Star Bank has 11 branches in the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.
Wahlquist’s son Andy is the president of the Maple Lake Bank, and his daughter Katie works out of the Eden Prairie location. He and his wife Maryalice, who recently passed, have two other children.
Harry Wahlquist’s obituary appeared last week on page 5.