A Portrait of William A. Clark, in Few Brushstrokes
Written by Philomena Kreamer
March 2, 2025, marks the 100th anniversary of the death of William A. Clark, American entrepreneur and politician. Clark’s name continues to live on today in Clark County, Nev., and Clarkdale, Ariz. Both are named after Clark to honor his involvement in their founding: Clark County is home to Las Vegas, a town which was originally founded on 110 acres Clark subdivided, and which served as a maintenance stop for Clark’s San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake Railroad; and Clarkdale was the original smelting operations site for Clark’s mines in nearby Jerome, Ariz. Clark’s life story reads as an almost unbelievable expression of the American Dream in action, ending in Clark being a prominent member of what Mark Twain dubbed “The Gilded Age.” Perhaps it is not so surprising to find that, despite many humanitarian endeavors and an obvious taste for beautiful things, Clark was not without his enemies. The portrait of W.A. Clark is a complicated one, though he left behind more memorials than most lives.
Born on January 8th, 1839, in Connellsville, Pens. to an Irish protestant family that had recently immigrated from County Tyrone, perhaps it is not surprising that from a young age Clark had a proclivity for forcefully arguing his way. When his family moved to Iowa in 1856, he studied law at Iowa Wesleyan College, and taught for a few years. In 1862, he went west to Colorado to try his hand at mining, but moved to Montana in 1863 to find his fortune during the Montana gold rush. He made his claim near Bannack, Mont., but following only moderate success, he took his earnings and invested in a trading business that transported supplies between Salt Lake City, Utah, and the boomtowns of Montana.
Soon after, he sold his trade business and changed careers again, opening a bank with his brother in Deerlodge, Mont., humorously called, not “Clark Brothers,” but “W.A. Clark and Brother.” This small anecdote begins to paint the picture of an industrious man who was not shy about using his money to place himself in a foremost position. Through his work as a banker, Clark came to repossess many mining properties when their owners defaulted on their loans, and thus it was that Clark entered the mining business once again. He quickly made a fortune with copper mining and small smelters, becoming one of the three “Copper Kings” of Butte, Mont., along with Marcus Daly and F. Augustus Heinze. Clark additionally came to own electric companies, newspapers, and railroads, among other businesses.
Though Clark’s businesses took him around the world, he must have had a special place in his heart for Butte, where he made a good deal of his fortune. In 1884, Clark started work on a 34-room home, complete with Tiffany decorations and the most modern innovations, on West Granite Street in Butte, known today as The Copper King Mansion. In 1899, Clark built the Columbia Gardens for the children of Butte to enjoy. Starting as a 23 acre complex and eventually growing to 68 city acres, the Gardens included an amusement park and concessions (costing a small price), and a zoo, as well as beautifully maintained gardens, and other attractions. Though the Gardens opened as a way for Clark to curry favor during his bid for the U.S. Senate, he continued to keep the Gardens open, free of charge, at much expense to himself, long after his term in the Senate had ended. Indeed, Clark himself established a weekly “Children’s Day,” with free transportation to the park and discounted rides. When the Anaconda Copper Company purchased many of Clark’s holdings upon his death in 1925, the yearly expense for operations was over $50,000: over $789,000 in today’s dollars. Despite this expense, they chose to keep the Columbia Gardens open for many years, recognizing its beloved importance to the community.
However, Clark’s establishment in the Butte community wasn’t all due to his love of the place. In fact, he was uniquely centered in Butte to serve as president in the Montana State Constitutional Conventions of 1884 and 1889. At the time, Butte was one of the largest cities in the west, and Clark’s original ambition, long before he entered mining, was to be a politician. Butte offered him a unique locality to further his ambitions, especially after he purchased and began to use newspapers to position himself in the public mind as the ideal statesman. Clark would famously purchase a newspaper, run positive editorials about himself, and then quietly sell the newspaper again. Indeed, many of Clark’s legacies are best understood in the light of what he got out of them: for instance, his famous campaign to establish Helena, Mont., as the state capital over Anaconda, Mont., won him the political favor of the decidedly more affluent and powerful personages who lived in Helena. The fact that the choice of Helena as state capital caused grief to rival Copper King Marcus Daly was simply an added benefit.
In 1899, it seemed that Clark’s ambitions as a politician had been recognized when he successfully won a bid for the U.S. Senate. However, the Senate refused to seat him after it was revealed that he had bribed many of the Montana state legislators in return for their votes (at the time, the state legislatures elected senators). Clark’s 1899 bribery scheme resulted in so much scandal that it contributed to the passage of the 17th amendment in 1913. Clark was not deterred by claims of corruption, and remained determined to go to congress. In fact, Clark had always been open about his bribery, as if it was as much a part of the election process as forwarding the public good. In one instance, a legislator who was in debt to a bank had his debt cleared after Clark bought the bank.
Despite these setbacks, Clark successfully won a seat, without bribery, in 1901, and served in the U.S. Senate until 1907. Clark famously stated, summing up the election scandal, that he had, “never bought a man who wasn’t for sale.” Clark’s nonchalance in the face of public scandal paints more of the portrait of this man: he had money and he had ambition, and he certainly wasn’t attached to his money more than his ambition. It goes to show just how great his ambition was that, at the time of his death in 1925, he was worth over $300 million, around $4.15 billion by today’s dollar, making him one of the wealthiest Americans to have ever lived.
After serving as Senator Clark, he returned to mining operations, and established Clarkdale, Ariz., in 1912 to serve as a smelting town for his mines in Jerome, Ariz. Clarkdale presents another of Clark’s ambitions: to own one of the most modern mining towns in the world. A wonderful example of urban planning, Clarkdale included telephone, telegraph, electrical, sewer, and spring water services. Clearly, though a member of “the Gilded Age,” Clark used many of his resources in order to create things that would be beautiful, useful, and long-lasting. The Columbia Gardens are one example; Clarkdale is another; Clark’s mansion in Butte, and his 121 room mansion on 5th Avenue in New York are yet more. Most of the places Clark built show that he held a deep appreciation for beauty. Another brushstroke, another layer of complexity to the portrait: a self-made magnate, an unabashedly corrupt politician, a vain man; but also, a loving father, a humanitarian, a man who enjoyed the finer things in life.
Clark has received more notice in recent years following the death of his youngest daughter Huguette in 2011. Shortly after Huguette died at the age of 104, it was revealed that caretakers at her three large estates had not seen her in decades. In fact, Huguette was a recluse for most of her adult life, and spent the last three decades of her life in a mostly solitary existence. Her unusual life has inspired many to ask questions about her family–and thus W.A. Clark has come into notice again, especially after her cousin, Paul Clark Newell Jr. co-authored a book with Bill Dedman on Huguette entitled Empty Mansions. At the time of her death, Huguette’s estate was still worth over $300 million–and this after millions in expenditure throughout the years of her life. It is worth considering the man whose youngest daughter, at 104, after decades of spending money, left behind $300 million in assets.
On his death, Clark bequeathed more than 800 objects to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., including many impressionist paintings. An appreciator of beauty, Clark’s bequest shows a desire to share some of that beauty with others, even after his death. It was Clark’s demand that these pieces be kept together, and they could be seen in the Clark Wing at the Corcoran Gallery as long as it was open. Perhaps this strikes as being a vain demand, and maybe it was, but what man of refined tastes does not want to be recognized for holding those tastes? Really, Clark was in many ways like those impressionist paintings. The ideal of the impressionist was to create an image that was subjective: in different lights, to different people, the painting took on different meaning. William A. Clark may be viewed as a wealthy, corrupt, and vain man, but by different lighting, he takes on the appearance of a philanthropist, a lover of beauty, a man who let his sentiments lead him to success. The brush strokes individually do not convey what may be seen when the painting is looked at as a whole.