Setting the record straight about Mowitza Lodge on Salmon Lake

SEELEY LAKE - After reading the article "A glimpse into the life of William A. Clark," Legendary Lodge's Caretaker Ron Burnett contacted the Pathfinder with more information regarding the Mowitza Lodge and William A. Clark Jr.

Burnett taught science at Hellgate High School for nearly 30 years. He started as the caretaker for Legendary Lodge in 2008. Because of his interest in history and ample free time his first winter, Burnett started researching the history of the Mowitza Lodge.

"There is so much misinformation in some of the books and being a science teacher you kind of have a hypothesis and then you go through the information," said Burnett.

Clark, Jr. was the youngest surviving son of Copper baron and U.S. Senator William A. Clark and his first wife Katherine Stuaffer. He worked for his father in Butte and was a lawyer, who spent a lot of time back east in Virginia, New York and France.

Clark, Jr. married Mabel Duffield Forster in 1902 and had a son named William A. "Tertius" Clark, III that same year. According to Burnett, Tertius was called the million-dollar baby by the newspapers of the time. He got his name from Senator Clark's promise that the first grandson would receive a million dollars. Forster died from complications due to childbirth in 1903.

Clark Jr. married Alice McManus from Virginia City in 1907. She died in 1916.

While the book "Cabin Fever" reports in the Chronology that W.A. Clark built the Mowitza Lodge on Salmon Lake in 1915, it also credits W.A. Clark III with building it in a photo caption on page 152.

"Neither one of those is correct," said Burnett.

In the chapter, Legendary Lodge at Salmon Lake in "Cabin Fever," Pete Rovero of Seeley Lake, who worked at Legendary Lodge in the early years, claimed that Clark Jr. purchased the property and "was chastised by his father for doing so."

Burnett added, "The whole Clark family was businessmen and entrepreneurs – Clark Jr. was different. He had the money but he didn't squander it, he helped a lot of people. He started the YWCA in California because of his mother Katherine [and others including founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and donated the Alice McManus Clark Library, now Clark Administration Building, at the University of Nevada-Reno]. When they bad mouth [the Clark family], they are misusing it because of one incident. It's like politicians today."

Recorded in Missoula County Deed books, Burnett found where Clark Jr. purchased the 40 acres of land, on which the Mowitza Lodge and accompanying cabins were built, on Jan. 20, 1915 for $1 from the Sante Fe Pacific Railroad Company. The land was originally owned by the U.S. Forest Service and was traded to the Sante Fe Pacific Railroad Company for a 40-acre tract of land in the San Francisco Mountains in Arizona.

Clark Jr. then purchased the nearly 17 acres of land on the east of Salmon Lake at the entry of what is now Legendary Lodge from the Anaconda Copper Mining Company for $337 on March 26, 1915.

According to the Aug. 6, 1950 article in the Chicago Tribune, the Clarks spent $400,000 on the matched log lodge, guest cabins and service and recreation buildings including a mountaintop "tea house."

Burnett said the Clark Jr. provided boots for guests to walk up to the tea house. Burnett still has pieces of the tea house.

Burnett also salvaged wicker furniture from the 1920s as well as an Art Decko chair and incense burner from 1925. Many of the other things left by the Clarks were destroyed.

Burnett said this was not the only piece of property Clark Jr. owned on Salmon Lake. On Feb. 21, 1913, Clark Jr. purchased 10 acres on the southern point on the westside of Salmon Lake for $1 from the Clark Montana Reality Company, of which Clark Jr. was a trustee.

In the June 25, 1913 issue of The Butte Miner, it talks of the "spacious clubhouse just completed on Salmon Lake" by Butte men Dr. T.C. Witherspoon, George Casey, Clark Jr. and J.L. Templeman. The development also included a bungalow, store houses, canoes, boats and launches built under the direction of "Chick" White. White was one of the first white children in the area and known as the best fisherman in the entire west claiming to fill 10 fish baskets in an afternoon.

According to Burnett, the 10 acres later became a Campfire Girls Camp. While Burnett is unsure if there is a connection, Senator Clark donated 135 acres of land for the first national Girl Scout camp, named Camp Andree Clark after his daughter Andree who died from meningitis in 1919. Camp Andree is still in operation in Briarcliff Manor, New York.

Clark, Jr. died June 14, 1934 at Mowitza Lodge from a heart attack two years after his only son Tertius died in a plane crash in Arizona, May, 1932.

"It was kind of a thing to get him back to Missoula [to be buried in California] because there was no road here until 1936," said Burnett.

The name "Mowitza" still remains a mystery.

The Chicago Tribune Aug. 6, 1950 article reported that Senator Clark named the lodge "Mowitza" meaning "running deer" after the plentiful game in the area.

When Montana State University-Billings Associate Professor and Chair of the History Department Keith Edgerton was asked at the Seeley Lake Historical Society presentation Nov. 16, he said it is an Indian name meaning "by peaceful waters."

Burnett has his own hypothesis of why Clark Jr. named the lodge Mowitza.

The Clark family frequented the Toronto area in Canada, Rangeley, Maine and France. In the 1920's, a mahogany speedboat named "Mowitza," that burned a highly flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture called naphtha, had never lost a race held in Muskoka, Ontario near Toronto, Canada. According to the art description of the 'Mowitza' painting by Robert Vanderhorst, Mowitza is loosely translated as 'Little Fawn' in native Ojibwa.

"What if Mowitza came from the race boat? If you were a jet setter and rubbed elbows with people in the know, that would be a nice calling card for this place. It is such a weird name," said Burnett. "Otherwise why didn't he pick something different?"