Karl Ricks Anderson (born 1937) is a Latter-day Saint historian whose specialty is the Kirtland period in the history of the Latter Day Saint movement. He is a brother of Richard Lloyd Anderson and they were the second recipients of the Junius F. Wells Award from the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation in 2006. Anderson was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and grew up in Ogden, Utah. He served as a Mormon missionary in the Swiss–Austrian Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1957 to 1960.