The company was founded by Henry Timken in St. Louis, Missouri in 1899 and incorporated as The Timken Roller Bearing Axle Company. A year earlier, in 1898, Timken got a patent for the tapered roller bearing for which the company would become known. At the time, Timken was a carriage-maker in St. Louis and held threepatents for carriage springs. However, it was his patent for tapered roller bearings that allowed his company to become successful.

Tapered roller bearings were a breakthrough at the end of the 19th century because bearings used in wheel axles had not changed much since ancient times. They relied on bearings enclosed in a case that held lubricants. These were called "friction bearings" and depended on lubricants to function. Without proper lubrication, these bearings would fail due to excessive heat caused by friction. Timken was able to significantly reduce the friction on his bearings by using a "cup" and "cone" design incorporating tapered bearings which actually rolled, which reduced the load placed on the bearings by distributing the weight and load evenly across the cups, cones, and bearings.

The company moved to Canton, Ohio in 1901 as the automobile industry began to overtake the carriage industry. Timken chose this location because of its proximity to the American car manufacturing centers of Detroit Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio, and because it was close to the American steel-making centers of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Cleveland.