Charles T. Carpenter

Who was Charles T. Carpenter?

Charles Thomas Carpenter, born December 9, 1858 in Bedford County, Tennessee, died February 22, 1945 at Montgomery County, Kansas, was a pioneer banker who was taken hostage by the Dalton Gang in their last raid, October 5, 1892, in Coffeyville, Kansas.

Carpenter was a son of Samuel and Sarah Carpenter, of Palmetto, Tennessee. He was schooled in a private institution at Palmetto, and attended the State University at Bloomington, Indiana, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Phi and graduated in 1876 with an Bachelor of Arts degree. After graduation, he moved to Kansas to join his parents at Oswego, Kansas, where he first worked for his father, and then served two years as cashier of Condon Bank. In 1886 he moved to Coffeyville as a partner in the Condon Bank office established at Coffeyville that year. He was also senior partner in the Charles T. Carpenter Insurance Agency, the largest agency in Montgomery County, Kansas. He served as president of the Coffeyville Board of Education and trustee of the Montgomery County High School at Independence, Kansas.

Carpenter married in 1892 at Rockport, Indiana to Temple West, who was born in Pike County, Indiana.