Hackett Davidson Smartt (1892-1991)

From the Colorado State Yearbook, 1951.

   Another oddly named Colorado state representative discovered recently, Hackett Davidson Smartt served three consecutive terms in his state's house of representatives and lived to age 98, but despite prominence in state government and a near century-long lifespan, his life largely remains obscure. A native of Tennessee, Hackett Davidson Smartt was born in the settlement of Smartt Station (located in Warren County) on August 18, 1892, the son of Frank George and Anna Belle Smartt. 

  No information could be located in regards to Smartt's early life in Tennessee or the extent of his education, and by 1915 is recorded as a resident of Prowers County, Colorado. He married in that county in April of the following year to Lela Mae Richmond (1889-1978), and the couple's sixty-two-year marriage saw the births of four children, Edward Richmond (1917-1980), Frank Hackett (1918-2008), Jack William (1922-2005) and Bettie Ann (born 1928).

  Following his resettlement in Prowers County, Hackett Smartt became a leader in agricultural circles in his region, operating a farm near the town of Lamar. The first local agent for the Farm Automobile Insurance Company in Lamar, Smartt would serve a decade long tenure as president of the Prowers County Farm Bureau and was elected as vice president of the Colorado State Farm Bureau in 1935. He would be reelected as vice president in 1937, and later was named secretary of the Arkansas River Compact administration, comprising Colorado and Kansas, in the 1950s.

  In 1948 Hackett Smartt won the Democratic primary for state representative from Prowers County and that November won the general election, polling 3,105 votes and defeating another oddly named man, Cora Ransom Strain (1871-1960), who had first been elected to the legislature in 1942. Smartt's first term in the house (1949-51) saw him named to the following committees: Appropriations and Expenditures; Corporations; Counties and County Lines; Irrigation and Water Resources; Livestock; and Public Lands and Forest Reserves. 

  Smartt would win reelection to two further terms in the legislature in 1950 and 1952, and in his last term sat as a member of the committees on Appropriations and Highways. Smartt's life after the conclusion of his legislative largely remains a mystery--unusual when one considers that he lived to be nearly 100 years old! Widowed in 1978, Smartt continued residence in Prowers County and in 1982 celebrated his 90th birthday. He died in Colorado on April 2, 1991, five months short of his 99th birthday. He was survived by three of his children and was interred alongside his wife Lela at the Fairmount Cemetery in Lamar.