Walter Burges Beals was born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1876. Beals's family traveled west in 1897, and Beals enrolled in the newly founded University of Washington Law School; he and his future wife Othilia Carroll were members of the first graduating class of the school in 1901.

Beals served as a military officer in France during World War I and afterwards helped organize and found the American Legion. His legal career flourished in the 1920s, and in 1926, he accepted a position as judge of the Superior Court of King County. Beals became a member of the Washington State Supreme Court in 1928, a position he held until his retirement in 1950, twice holding the position of Chief Justice. Beals is perhaps best known for his work, in 1946-1947, as Presiding Judge at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremburg, the Nazi war trial known as the "Doctors' Trial."

Walter Beals was an avid collector of books, manuscripts, such as liturgical and religious manuscripts, and signatures, particularly those of European royalty. Beals also began creating albums as a young man, a hobby he continued throughout his life, collecting and soliciting signatures, manuscripts and other materials which he would mount on paper or vellum and bind into albums, often with leather covers. In his time, Beals was considered the greatest private collector of manuscripts and books in the Pacific Northwest.