25 Facts About Alice Walton

1.

Alice Louise Walton was born on October 7,1949 and is an American heiress to the fortune of Walmart.

2.

Alice Walton was raised along with her three brothers in Bentonville, Arkansas and graduated from Bentonville High School in 1966.

3.

Early in her career, Alice Walton was an equity analyst and money manager for First Commerce Corporation and headed investment activities at Arvest Bank Group.

4.

In 1988, Alice Walton founded Llama Company, an investment bank, where she was president, chairwoman and CEO.

5.

Alice Walton was the first person to chair the Northwest Arkansas Council and played a major role in the development of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, which opened in 1998.

6.

Alice Walton provided $15 million in initial funding for construction, and Llama Company underwrote a $79.5 million bond.

7.

Alice Walton was inducted into the Arkansas Aviation Hall of Fame in 2001.

8.

The first piece of art Alice Walton purchased was a print of Picasso's Blue Nude when she was ten years old; it cost her 5 weeks allowance.

9.

In December 2004, Alice Walton purchased art sold from the collection of Daniel and Rita Fraad at Sotheby's, in New York.

10.

In 2005, Alice Walton purchased Asher Brown Durand's celebrated painting, Kindred Spirits, in a sealed-bid auction for a purported US$35 million.

11.

Alice Walton has purchased works by American painters Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper, as well as a notable portrait of George Washington by Charles Willson Peale, in preparation for the opening of Crystal Bridges.

12.

In 2009, Alice Walton acquired Norman Rockwell's "Rosie the Riveter" for $4.9 million.

13.

Alice Walton says her motivation for the museum was to give access to art to people who had never had it.

14.

Alice Walton was the 20th-largest individual contributor to 527 committees in the US presidential election 2004, donating US$2.6 million to the conservative Progress for America group.

15.

Alice Walton donated $353,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee supporting Clinton and other Democrats, in 2016.

16.

In 2016, Alice Walton donated $225 million among a total $407 million from Walmart heirs to the Alice Walton Family Holdings Trust, which finances the family's philanthropy.

17.

In 2022, Alice Walton's foundation gave a $3.5 million grant to the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank: $3 million to support construction of a food distribution center, and $500,000 to buy and distribute food.

18.

Alice Walton has said her goal is to reduce the amount of art kept in storage.

19.

Additionally, Alice Walton has given $10 million to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and partnered with the Ford Foundation through Art Bridges to fund programs to improve diversity in arts leadership.

20.

Alice Walton married a prominent Louisiana investment banker in 1974 at age 24, but they were divorced two and a half years later.

21.

Alice Walton has been involved in multiple automobile accidents, one of them fatal.

22.

Alice Walton lost control of a rented Jeep during a 1983 Thanksgiving family reunion near Acapulco and plunged into a ravine, shattering her leg.

23.

Alice Walton was airlifted out of Mexico and underwent more than two dozen surgeries; she suffers lingering pain from her injuries.

24.

In 1998, Alice Walton moved to a ranch in Millsap, Texas, named Alice Walton's Rocking W Ranch.

25.

Alice Walton listed the farm for sale in 2015 and moved to Fort Worth, Texas, citing the need to focus on the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.