Clippings announcing the release of Karpis from McNeil Island Penitentiary (1968)

James E. Carty’s great granduncle (James), arriving with the Hudson’s Bay Co. in 1837, and grandfather (James N. Carty), arriving in 1858, were among the first non-Native American families to settle in Clark County. Among the family papers in this collection includes title abstracts of property owned by the Carty family as well as receipts and accounting ledgers documenting the family’s daily business, which included a rock and gravel quarry. A small number of personal letters and a scrapbook of clippings and poetry are also included.

As an attorney, James E. Carty encountered many interesting cases in his career. One of the more notable cases was his involvement in the parole of the legendary gangster Alivin “Old Creepy” Karpis, a leader of the Barker/Karpis gang. During the late 1960’s Carty became lawyer for Karpis after being recommended by another inmate. Carty and Karpis became good friends and continued a regular correspondence. Karpis was successfully paroled after spending over 30 years behind bars, 25 of which were spent at Alcatraz with some of the nations most notable criminals. The James E. Carty Collection contains over ten years of correspondence between Karpis and Carty, photographs documenting the day of parole, a manuscript and galley proof of Alvin Karpis book The Alvin Karpis Story, clippings and other items and ephemera relating to their legal and personal relations.

Although much of Carty’s political career had ended in the early 1980s, he remained politically active in the Democratic Party until his death in 2001. The collection includes a large number of copies and clippings of editorials written to local newspapers expressing concern over political and social issues of the day. Correspondence with regional and national political figures are also contain in the collection as well as a number of news articles, research data for political strategy and a collection of jargon for political speeches.

In his later life, Carty exercised his abilities as a historian. In 1994 he published a book called A Territorial Anthology of the Oregon Territory 1792-1860, an historical survey revealing the early voyages, settlements and business of immigrants in the Northwest, the life of American Indians in the area and the ensuing wars and conflict with whites. The collection includes typed drafts and notes of the book with revisions and finalized copies. Also included are a number of other historical writings Carty composed during and after the creation of the book. Some of these writings uncover little known histories about Clark County and the Pacific Northwest. Other miscellaneous writings are interspersed among the historical papers, revealing Carty’s reflections and opinions of his own history, his politics and observations on the present state and future of Clark County and the nation.