Carroll Gartin

William Carroll Gartin (September 14, 1913 – December 19, 1966) was an American Democratic politician from Laurel in Jones County in southeastern Mississippi, who served three terms as the 22nd lieutenant governor of his state.

Early life William Carroll Gartin was born on September 14, 1913 in Poplar Springs, Meridian, in eastern Mississippi. He was the youngest of six children of Charles Gartin, a furniture salesman, and Geneva Jackson. An election was called for August 19, 1946, to fill the vacancy. He similarly won re-election in 1948. His opponents in the first Democratic primary on August 7 were Grady Cook, Jimmy Arrington, Hayden Campbell, Charles G. Hamilton, and Lee V. Prisock. He won the plurality of votes in the first primary. In the second primary against Arrington (mayor of Collins), Gartin won, receiving 247,458 votes to Arrington's 137,449. He was unopposed in the general election. could have simply ran in the Democratic primary and thus voided the need for a third election.

Johnson's campaign was buoyed by outgoing Governor Ross Barnett and Democratic State Chairman Bidwell Adam. Johnson topped Phillips, 62%-38%, and Gartin defeated the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, Stanford Morse, a state senator from Gulfport by an even larger 74%-26%.

Gartin was a staunch white supremacist and a former supporter of Governor and US Senator Theodore G. Bilbo. He was a member of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, which was devoted to preserving racial segregation in the state.

Gartin died of a heart attack in 1966 at Jones County Community Hospital, hours after he had checked in for chest pains.

The Carroll Gartin Justice Building , in the state capital, Jackson, is named after him and houses the Mississippi Supreme Court, the Mississippi Court of Appeals, and the state law library.

Gartin, an attorney, practiced law with Republican Charles W. Pickering.

Personal life Gartin married Janie Elizabeth Gavin in 1942, and they had two children.