Papers of Delph E. Carpenter and Family

The "Father of Interstate River Compacts," Delph E. Carpenter served the state of Colorado as a lawyer, state senator, and river commissioner. He drew on his family's pioneering, farming, and irrigating experiences to conceive new ways for arid western states to share their rivers. The compacts he wrote, negotiated, and promoted are still in place today--and are still debated.

Delphus Emory Carpenter was born May 13, 1877, the second son of Leroy S. and Martha Bennett Carpenter, who were among the original pioneers of the Union Colony of Colorado. Delph grew up in Greeley working on the family farm and graduated from Greeley High School in 1896. Having an interest in water law, he attended the University of Denver's night law school, graduating in 1899. After being admitted to the bar the same year, he returned to Greeley to practice law, preferring to work on water-related issues, but taking other cases to make ends meet. In 1907, he successfully defended an accused murderer, Charles Simonson, and gained increasing notoriety in the community. He also served as attorney for the towns of Ault, Eaton, and Evans.

Long having an interest in politics, Carpenter ran for state senator in the seventh district in 1908 and won, becoming the first such officeholder to be a Colorado native. He served from 1909 until 1913, losing his 1912 bid for re-election. While in the senate, Carpenter was a member of its committee on agriculture and irrigation and the judiciary committee among others. He had many achievements while in office, perhaps the most significant being the Carpenter Reservoir Bill (1911), which protected senior rights of reservoir owners against ditch companies with junior rights.

Concurrent with his senatorial service, Carpenter served as the attorney for the Greeley-Poudre Irrigation District. The District's construction of a tunnel to divert water from the Laramie River into the Cache la Poudre River prompted Wyoming to file a lawsuit against Colorado, immediately accepted by the United States Supreme Court. Carpenter was appointed lead counsel for Colorado. Preparations began in 1911, and Carpenter argued twice before the Supreme Court (1916 and 1918), but the Wyoming vs. Colorado decision did not come until 1922. This involvement and time span, in addition to a suit brought by Nebraska, led Carpenter to consider ways other than litigation to solve interstate water conflicts.

Following his senatorial service, Carpenter was appointed Colorado's interstate streams commissioner. By 1920, the idea of invoking the U.S. Constitution's compact clause (Article I, section 10) to solve interstate water disputes was forefront in Carpenter's mind. His guiding precept became equitable apportionment of interstate streams through compact agreements. He first publicly proposed this idea in August 1920 at the League of the Southwest conference in relation to the Colorado River. The League approved Carpenter's proposal, and he then began preparing for the negotiations.

The seven Colorado River Basin states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) each named a commissioner, and Colorado River Commission meetings began in January 1922 with Herbert Hoover, Secretary of Commerce, as the federal government's representative. The meetings continued throughout the year and concluded November 24th with the signing of a compact adopted by the commissioners. Seven more years passed before six of the states and Congress ratified the Colorado River Compact. (Arizona ratified in 1944.) Carpenter spent these years traveling widely to testify, interpret, and advocate in its favor, as well as writing and negotiating other compacts, including ones on the La Plata, Arkansas, Laramie, North Platte, Rio Grande, Republican, and South Platte rivers--some of which never came to fruition.

Carpenter served as Colorado's compact commissioner until 1933. By that time, his slowly failing health had deteriorated to a severe point. He suffered almost constant pain from 1922 with a neuritis giving symptoms of Parkinson's disease. From 1934 on, he was bedridden at his home in Greeley, cared for mainly by his wife. He died at the Island Grove Park hospital on February 27, 1951.

Delph Carpenter received the University of Colorado Medal of Honor in 1923 for distinguished public service as well as an honorary LL.D. from the same institution in 1927. Carpenter was religiously a Methodist and politically a Republican. He was also a Mason and a member of the Royal Arcanum as well as a breeder of registered shorthorn cattle, on his Crow Creek Ranch, fifteen miles northeast of Greeley. With all his other activities, he found time to serve as the secretary/treasurer for the Union Colony of Colorado for a number of years. Carpenter enjoyed hunting and occasionally wrote short stories, poetry, and other creative pieces.

The woman who stood by Carpenter throughout his life was born Ann Michaela Hogarty in 1878 and went by "Dot" later in life. She was the fifth and youngest child of Union Colony pioneers Michael J. and Sarah Carr Hogarty. She, like Delph, was a member of Greeley High School's Class of 1896, and she earned a degree from the Colorado State Normal School (now the University of Northern Colorado). She married Carpenter in 1901 and they had four children: Michaela Hogarty (1902-1997); Donald Alfred (1907-1993); Sarah Hogarty (1909-1994); and Martha Patricia ("Patsy"; 1914-1990). She was active in church and charity work in between traveling with and caring for her husband. Dot died in Greeley in 1980 at age 101.

Donald followed in his father's footsteps, earning his law degree in 1931 from National University in Washington, D.C., becoming a lawyer and working with his cousin in Texas. He returned to Greeley in 1934 but six years later was appointed secretary to Congressman William Hill, causing another move to Washington. Following army service during World War II in both Europe and Asia, Donald again returned to Greeley. He then served as county judge in Weld County from 1946 to 1952 and was elected district judge in 1952, holding that office as well as water court judge until 1978. He maintained a private law practice after retirement from the court. Donald married Evelyn Ward in 1941, and they had two children: William (1948) and Ward (1952). Following Evelyn's 1963 death, Donald married Doris Piedalue Baney (1924-2014) in 1965. Donald and Doris were honored as grand marshals of the Greeley Independence Stampede Parade in 1979.

The pioneering spirit of both the Carpenter and Hogarty families tells something of the influences on Delph and Dot during their upbringing, and in turn on Donald and his siblings. Leroy Carpenter (1843-1927) and four of his twelve siblings (Peter, Sarah, Silas, and Mattie) moved to the Union Colony from Tipton, Iowa, in 1871 with their father Daniel (1796-1884) and his second wife Nancy Scott Carpenter (Leroy's mother; 1809-1886). Daniel, born in Vermont, had served as a soldier in the War of 1812 and later lived in New York, Ohio, and Iowa. Once in Colorado, the Carpenters established a farm based on irrigated agriculture. In 1872, Leroy returned to Iowa to marry Martha Bennett (1854-1930), a teacher, who then joined him in Colorado. They were actively involved in their burgeoning community and its Methodist Episcopal church, and they raised three children: Alfred Bennett (1873-1953?), Delphus Emory (1877-1951), and Fred George (1881-1963), who in turn collectively raised twelve grandchildren.

The Hogartys exhibited similar westward peripatetic tendencies. Born in Ireland, Michael J. Hogarty (1836-1925) lived in several locations in the eastern United States and in 1863 joined the 141st New York Volunteer Infantry as a private to fight in the Civil War. Wounded in the eye in 1864, he was discharged within a few months and returned to New York to marry Sarah Carr (1844-1918) the same year. Hogarty reenlisted in 1865 and after the war continued to serve in the regular army as a lieutenant in New York and the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) until 1870, when he retired on account of his wound. He was later promoted to the rank of captain. The Hogartys had five children, the youngest three born after their move to the Union Colony in 1871: Harriet Carr ("Hattie"; 1869-1948); Mary Tuttle ("Mame"; 1870-1910); William Patrick (1872-1944); Barry (1876-1961); and Ann Michaela ("Dot"; 1878-1980). Mame married Bruce Eaton, son of Colorado governor Benjamin Eaton, in 1891, and had five children with him. The Hogartys farmed near Greeley until 1904 when M. J. and Sarah moved to National City, California.

Many of the family members are buried in Greeley's Linn Grove Cemetery, including four generations of Carpenters: Daniel and Nancy, Leroy and Martha, Delph and Dot, and Donald, Evelyn, and Doris. For biographical information about various family members, the best sources are found within this collection as well as The History of Colorado, S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1918-1919, a five volume set. The only book-length biography of Delph Carpenter is Daniel Tyler's Silver Fox of the Rockies: Delphus E. Carpenter and Western Water Compacts, University of Oklahoma Press, 2003, which relied heavily upon this collection.