Arizona republican., 1899-12-11
MR.. CLARK
OF MONTANA

The story of the rise OF William \.
Clark, of Butte Mont, now United
States Senator, is the story of the busy
life, the plain telling of which reads like
a romance. 1t is a story of close ap-
plication in everything he has set out
upon, of complete mastery of every de-
tail of every enterprise, no matter how
complex it might have have been. Hav-
ing developed copper properties with q
capacity that will only be limited by
the demand for the red metal, Mr..
Clark is now extensively engaged in the
exploitation of what promises to be the
biggest lead mine in the world, in the
operation of bonanza gold and silver
mines, in the manufacture of sugar
from beets by the thousands of tons, in
the development of coal measures, the
building of railroads, the manufacture
of copper wire. all these on a scale that
may properly be called extensive"
And in addition to that he is beginning
to grow coffee, sugar cane, tobacco and
rubber, and may become a grower OF
tea. The conclusion that these enter
prises will be extensive ones, too, fol-
lows from the unbroken record of pro-
gress that goes before. In every branch
of his interests he is master of them.
He has been a business man in the mer
camille sense, and is a banker and stock
grower. And yet he has found odd
moments in a life so busy that it would
make most mems heads whirl, to be-
come proficient in some of the arts and
sciences, and to add to his storehouse
OF unitarian information much in the
way of knowledge of public affairs and
OF the better things of life
1t is the story of ambition to succeed
that led a man step by step up the lad
der of life, broadening his field of ac-
tfvity gradually but surely, until
stake he made in a placer mine in 1868
has grown to gigantic proportions
without having taken a cent from the
posse ssions of any other man. and until
he has become an employer in all his
vast enterprises of thousands of men:
some say that directly and indirectly
5000 of them share in his schemes for
producing wealth where there was none
before.
Mr.. Clark was born at Connellsville
Pa. on January 8, 1889, and is therefore
sixty years old, although he does not
look a day over fifty, and is IS full of
vigor and energy as a man of thirty.
He has been identified with Montana
ever since 1863, the year in which he
Joined the seekers for gold in the ad-
vance to the Bannock gold fields. He
had worked in 1852 in the quartz mines
around Central City, Col, and had &C
CURED q taste for mining that led to
his joining the adventurous spirits who
went West when the territory was
young. Ever since then he has been
interested constantly in mining enter
prises. His name during the thirty
five years of progress of the territory
and state since then has been associat-
ed with the development of its mining
resources as perhaps that of TO other
man has been.
1t took siXty-fve days o. travel with
an oX-team in those days to reach the
gold fields, and Mr.. Clark arrived in
time to go with several others to Horse
Prairie, to which there was then
stampede. There he secured a claim
that he worked that season and part of
the next, the $4,000 that he cleaned up
as result of the first seasons work
forming a basis for his future opera
tons in the territory. It has been by
constant ard close application To de-
tails, by continual effort to perfect him
self. in the knowledge of all that aD-
pertains to his chosen calling, that the
first product of his work in the placer
ground of the State has been to multi
ply itself vi il now his interests in