Dividing Western Waters: Mark Wilmer and Arizona v. California

Chapter One: Midwest to Southwest

 Chapter One MIDWEST TO SOUTHWEST Today, like a century ago, rolling green fields of corn, hay, dairy cows, and grain frame the small town of East Troy, Wisconsin, tucked sixty miles inland from Lake Michigan near the southeastern corner of the state. With a population approaching 4,000, East Troy and its environs form a pastoral community where its largely German and Irish pioneers have left a cultural imprint that residents embrace and protect. The past and present mix easily; median income, housing values, and education statistics stand far above state and national averages. Crime is virtually non-existent, and locals consider their quality of life idyllic. “East Troy,” says one lifelong resident, is a town of “integrity, patriotism, and industriousness.” In a place where winters last forever and summers can be sultry, wildlife and humans have achieved an enviable balance with nature. With little pretentiousness or effort, East Troy, Wisconsin, recalls a pre-industrial society that reflects, in many ways, the American agrarian ideal.1 On July 18, 1903, Mark Bernard Wilmer, whose professional career would shape the arid American Southwest and its legal, political, and economic history, was—somewhat paradoxically—born into this verdant community of farmers, dairymen, and small town merchants. In 1904, his parents, John Bernard Wilmer and Elizabeth Johnston Wilmer, purchased the “Stetson Place,” that served both as a dairy and a farm, seven miles east of East Troy, in the hamlet of Honey Creek, which, Mark recalled in later years, “had a population of just over 300 souls.”2 Thus, his earliest years were spent on the family farm, “one of the better dairy farms in Honey Creek,” where his father grew corn, hay, grain, and a variety of other crops as well as maintaining a good-sized dairy of between forty and fifty cows. “It was mostly a farming operation,” he remembered, “with my father growing as much of the feed as he could for the animals,” which included pigs and sheep along with the dairy cows. The enterprise produced a good living for John Wilmer’s family. Young Mark, the sixth of seven children, attended Honey Creek public schools—actually a two-room school—until third grade. Then his Catholic family, under the prodding of their parish priest, required that Mark attend parochial school.3 They went to church in Waterford, about six miles northeast of Honey Creek, and Mark was supposed to attend school there. The family traveled to church each Sunday by horse and buggy, which, once a week, posed no problems for the family; in fact, the Sunday outings became a welcome respite from the daily drudgery of the farm. But for Mark to attend parochial school in Waterford every day, his father would have to hitch up a horse and drive him to Waterford, which was not practical. They had to find another way. About seven miles southeast of Honey Creek, in Burlington, was another Catholic church and school. The priest at Waterford said that Mark could be 2 DIVIDING WESTERN WATERS One-year-old infant Mark Bernard Wilmer. Wilmer Family Photo Collection. 3 MIDWEST TO SOUTHWEST excused from attending school there if he went to the parochial school in Burlington, which sat midway on a train route that passed within a half-mile of the Wilmer farm. The daily run between Waukesha to Chicago held the key to Mark’s early parochial education. The “milk train,” carrying dairy products to Chicago from Wisconsin’s farms, left Waukesha in the morning and stopped a short walk from the farm at 7:30 A.M. It returned in the late afternoon around 4:30 P.M. Besides dairy products, it carried passengers, and an eight-minute ride to the Catholic school in Burlington would only cost 10 cents. For two years Mark woke up in the morning, walked to the tracks, caught the train and returned home at night. He thought Burlington was a “good-sized” town; the education he received there held him in good stead. With his two-year stint at Catholic school complete, Mark’s family reenrolled him in the public schools in Honey Creek.4 Though he liked school Mark was an average student. He admired and respected his father and his work ethic, but he knew at an early age that he preferred something other than life on the farm. As he progressed through grammar school, Mark combined book learning with a...