William A. Clark

William Andrews Clark Sr. (January 8, 1839 – March 2, 1925) was an American mining magnate, entrepreneur and politician who was known as one of Montana's Copper Kings alongside Marcus Daly, and F. Augustus Heinze. He was a U.S. Senator from Montana from 1901 to 1907.

Clark was born in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, in 1839 to John Clark and Mary Andrews, both of Scotch-Irish descent; his mother also claimed a strain of Huguenot ancestry. He moved with his family to Iowa in 1856 where he taught school and studied law at Iowa Wesleyan College. In 1862, he traveled west to become a miner. After working in quartz mines in Colorado, Clark made his way to new gold fields in 1863 to find his fortune in the Montana gold rush.

He settled in the capital of Montana Territory, Bannack, Montana, and began placer mining. Though his claim paid only moderately, Clark took on additional grunt work and invested his earnings in becoming a trader, driving mules back and forth between Salt Lake City and the boomtowns of Montana to transport eggs and other basic supplies. He undertook mail carrying contracts and ferried post from Walla Walla, Washington, to Missoula, Montana, for three years with his brothers.

Clark moved to and expanded into banking in Deer Lodge, Montana. His bank foreclosed on many properties during the mineral busts, and he became more and more invested into mining. He continued to expand his mercantile businesses during this time as well.

Clark took his young family to New York City in the 1870s, and studied mining and mineralogy at what is now Columbia University. He travelled extensively in all areas between coasts of the United States and Hawaii, and made trips to Europe once or twice a year. He made a fortune with copper mining, smelters, electric power companies, newspapers, railroads (trolley and rail lines around Butte and other parts of Montana and the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad from Salt Lake City to San Pedro and Los Angeles, California), banking, land development, commercial sales, agriculture and timber enterprises, and railroads. He became known as one of three major "Copper Kings" of Butte, Montana, along with Marcus Daly and F. Augustus Heinze.

The November 1903 Congressional Directory inaccurately claimed that Clark "was a major of a battalion that pursued Chief Joseph and his band in the Nez Perces invasion of 1877." In reality, Clark had led a medical relief mission after the battle.

Clark was twice named president of Montana Constitutional Conventions, in 1884 and 1889. He yearned to be a statesman, and used his newspaper, the Butte Miner, to push his political ambitions. At this time, Butte was one of the largest cities in the West. He gained popularity in Helena, Montana, by campaigning for its selection as the state capital instead of Anaconda. This battle for the placement of the capital had subtle Irish vs. English, Catholic vs. Protestant, and non-Masonic vs. Masonic elements.

Clark's longstanding dream of becoming a United States senator resulted in scandal in 1899 when it was revealed that he had bribed members of the Montana State Legislature in return for their votes. At the time, U.S. senators were chosen by their respective state legislatures. The corruption of his election contributed to the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment. The U.S. Senate and a Republican Congress refused to seat Democrat Clark due to the 1899 bribery scheme. When Montana's governor left the state temporarily to transfer a mining claim in San Francisco, the lieutenant governor surreptitiously appointed Clark to fill the Senate vacancy, but on the governor's return, Clark's hoped-for appointment was fully quashed. A later senate campaign was successful, and he served a single term from 1901 to 1907. In responding to criticism of his bribery of the Montana legislature, Clark is widely reported to have said, "I never bought a man who wasn't for sale."

Clark died at the age of 86 in his New York City mansion. His estate at his death was estimated to be worth $300 million (equivalent to $4.26 billion in 2024), making him one of the wealthiest Americans ever.

In a 1907 essay, Mark Twain, who was a close friend and also benefactee of Clark's rival, Henry H. Rogers, an organizer of the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company, portrayed Clark as the very embodiment of Gilded Age excess and corruption:

He is as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag; he is a shame to the American nation, and no one has helped to send him to the Senate who did not know that his proper place was the penitentiary, with a ball and chain on his legs. To my mind he is the most disgusting creature that the republic has produced since Tweed's time.

Clark died of pneumonia on March 2, 1925, at his lavish 121-room mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City. He was 86. According to reports at the time, he had contracted a cold just a few days prior but succumbed suddenly while surrounded by his family. Clark died as one of the richest men in this gilded era, and is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City.

Clark was married twice. His first marriage was to Katherine Louise "Kate" Stauffer whom he knew from Connellsville in 1869, they were married until her death in 1893. Together, they had seven children:

Charles Walker "Charlie" Clark (1871–1933)

Clark served twice as president of the Montana Constitutional Convention, presiding over efforts to turn the territory toward statehood. He was an active member of Montana's Society of Pioneers and contributed to their annual meetings and activities. Clark's extensive art collection was donated to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., after his death. The Clark donation also included the construction of a new wing for the Corcoran, now known as the Clark Wing. He left the Columbia Gardens to Butte, and the Paul Clark home to the orphaned children of Butte with an endowment for its long-term operations. Clark helped fund and start the Collegiate Institute of Montana in Deer Lodge. He also left a bank building in Deer Lodge and contributed heavily to the Masonic Lodge buildings in both Deer Lodge and Butte.

In his mother's name, Clark gave the Mary Andrews Clark home in Los Angeles for working women, and funded an endowment for its ongoing upkeep. Monlaco Road in Los Angeles is named after the Montana Land Company that Clark and his brother J. Ross formed, which was associated with extensive farming and refining of sugar beets in the region. He provided initial and ongoing endowment funds for a kindergarten in New York City in honor of his first wife.

Clark further donated 135 acres to the Girl Scouts in honor of his elder daughter (by his second wife), Louise Amelia Andrée (who died at age 16 of meningitis). The Girl Scout camp in Briarcliff Manor was named Camp Andree Clark.

The township of Las Vegas was established as a maintenance stop for Clark's San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. He subdivided 110 acres (45 ha) into 1200 lots, some of which on the corner of Fremont Street in Las Vegas sold for as much as $1750. The Las Vegas area was organized as Clark County, Nevada, in Clark's honor. His involvement in the founding of Las Vegas is recounted in a decidedly negative light by Chris Romano in the "Las Vegas" episode of Comedy Central's Drunk History, with Rich Fulcher portraying Clark.

Clarkdale, Arizona, named for Clark, was the site of smelting operations for Clark's mines in nearby Jerome, Arizona. The town includes the historic Clark Mansion, which sustained severe fire damage on June 25, 2010. Clarkdale is home to the Verde Canyon Railroad wilderness train ride which follows the historic route that Clark had constructed in 1911 and home to the Copper Art Museum. Nearby, Jerome had a hospital and many other buildings built by Clark.