If you studied Montana history in the eighth grade many years ago, you read about the Copper Kings: Marcus Daly, William A. Clark and Augustus Heinze — the one we never remember. Clark, born in 1839, came west to work in the mining camps, ran a freight business from Salt Lake City to Montana and became a banker in Deer Lodge. In this latter role he foreclosed on mining claims in the Butte area, just when electrification in major cities back east created a huge demand for copper. Once he went off to Washington D.C. to serve in the U.S. Senate — quite a story in itself — he moved to New York City and spent most of his remaining days back east and in Europe.
Our local connection with the Clark family is Legendary Lodge on Salmon Lake, which the Clarks built in the mid-teens and called “Mowitza.” William Andrews Clark, Jr., the youngest son, used the property more than anyone else, and in fact died there in June 1934. For someone whose major accomplishments were in Los Angeles, he maintained a much closer relationship with Montana and the Salmon Lake summer home than his father did with our state. It’s interesting to look back at another person from our past.
William Clark Jr. was born in Deer Lodge in 1877, and studied abroad as well as at the University of Virginia. He was a partner in a Butte law firm, and certainly would have been involved with some of his father’s business interests both in Montana and Arizona. He moved to L.A. by 1915, it appears, and there his contributions to that city’s cultural life began. He founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1919, and continued to be the orchestra’s primary supporter for many years.
Also, once in L.A., Clark began collecting books in a serious way. He hired a private bibliographer and built an enormous collection — including what is probably the best collection of Oscar Wilde material in the world. Where did this collection end up? Not in Montana, but rather in Los Angeles at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. Much like his father, whose world class art collection was given to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C., the son reserved his big gifts for big cities.
But unlike his father, William Clark Jr. seemed to retain a love for Montana throughout his life. In 1917, several years after his move to L.A., he was back in Western Montana for the dedication of the Capt. John Mullan statue in St. Regis, which was a gift from him. He stayed at the Palace Hotel in Missoula, and after the ceremonies went to the “Summer Home” on Salmon Lake. In September of the same year we find him in Deer Lodge, where he donated $1,000 to the state penitentiary for books for the inmates.
Mowitza, the Salmon Lake property, was an important place for Clark for the rest of his life. In June 1924 the society section of the Missoulian noted that he would be “summering” at Mowitza. Likewise in early August 1927 there were guests from L.A. who spent the balance of the month on Salmon Lake.
In June 1934 William Clark Jr. died unexpectedly at Mowitza of a heart attack. He was 57, enjoying his successful L.A. life, yet was still planning to stay at Salmon Lake until September.
His death was widely reported in Butte and Missoula papers, with one report noting that “no physicians were available in the remote mountain community at the time of the attack.”
A final irony from Clark’s life is that, despite his birth in Deer Lodge and his death at Salmon Lake, he is buried in the Hollywood Cemetary in a mausoleum costing $500,000. His much younger half sister Huguette, from his father’s second marriage, is buried at the senior Clark’s mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, N.Y. She is known for having lived the last over 20 years in NYC hospitals, dying in 2011 at the age of 104.
As a family, the Clarks made much of their fortune in Montana, but spent and left it elsewhere. But Willliam Clark Jr. maintained his appreciation for Salmon Lake and our natural beauty during his life.
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