Edward N. Torbert papers

Dr. Edward N. Torbert was an internationally recoginzed geographer and engineer. He was born in Syracuse, New York on April 19, 1903. He received a BS degree in engineering from Darthmouth College in 1925 and attained MS (1927) and Phd (1931) degrees from the University of Chicago. He taught geography at Dartmouth College and San Jose State College.

From 1939 to 1944, Dr. Torbert was the Field Coordinator for the Bureau of Reclamation for the Columbia Basin Joint Investigations regarding the development and settlement of the Columbia Basin project (irrigation) in Washington state.

From July 1944 to January 1953, Dr. Torbert was the Regional Planning Engineer at the Bureau of Reclamation region I office in Boise. In 1952, he began work at the Institute of Inter-American Affairs in Port-au-Prince, Haiti as head of a group to study the Artibonite Valley Project. In 1953, he resigned from the Bureau of Reclamation and travelled to Afghanistan as the Water Resource Planning Advisor for the Helmand Valley Authority, with headquarters at Kandahar.

On May 1, 1953, Dr. Torbert died in Karachi, Pakistan, where he had been rushed for treatment of bulbar polio. The Distinguished Service Award was given posthumously to Torbert.

Torbert's wife, Elise B. Torbert was a teacher and lecturer. She was an organizer and member of various organizations, among them the Idaho League of Women Voters and the Boise Valley World Affairs Association, Inc.