CLARK, William Andrews, American business man and politician : b. near Connells ville, Pa., 8 Jan. 1839, of Scotch-Irish parentage. He had a common school education and was preparing for college which was interrupted by the removal of his family to Iowa. In that State he attended an academy at Birmingham and later spent a year in the Wesleyan Univer sity at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, where he also studied law. He afterward taught school in the State of Missouri, 1858-60. In the spring of 1862 he drove a team from Atchison, Kan., to South Park, Colo., and then worked in the mines at Central City, Colo., for nearly a year. In 1863 he migrated to Grasshopper Mines, a new discovery in eastern Idaho, which after ward became a part of the State of Montana, where he mined two years in the placer dig gings. He later formed a copartnership in a large mercantile and banking business, in which he had a minor interest, which continucd until 1872, when he sold his interest in the mercan tile business and organized the First National Bank of Deer Lodge, Mont., of which he be came president. He has conunued in the bank ing business up to the present time, being now senior member of the firm of W. A. Clark & Brother at.Butte, Mont. In 1872 he first visited the mining camp at Butte, Mont., where he made some purchascs, and has ever since that time been interested in large mining operations. In order to qualify himself for this business in the winter of 1872-73 he took a special course in the Columbia School of Mines. His milling interests were afterward enlarged until at the present time he is owner of large mining inter ests in Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nevada and Arizona, where he is the principal owner of the famous United Verde Copper Company's mines, and is now the largest individual producer of the different metals in the United States, and probably the entire world. In connection with
Mr. E. H. Harriman he built the railroad ex tending from Salt Lalce City to Los Angeles and San Pedro Harbor. A unique feature of this transaction was that no bonds were ever sold. The road was built from cash furnished by the principals, and this is now one of the leading_railroad Interests in the western coun try. He was appointed by the governor to represent Montana as State orator at the Phila delphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, and was also appointed a commissioner of the New Orleans Exposition in 1884. He was grand master of Masons in Montana in the years 1877 78. He was appointed by the governor as major of a battalion of volunteers at the time of the invasion of the Nez Perces Indians, who were led by Chief Joseph. In 1884 at the for mation of the first Constitutional Convention of Montana he was elected president. In 1898 a second convention was called, of which he was likewise elected president, and under the constitution then framed Montana was admitted into the union of States. In 1898 he was elected by the State legislature as senator from Mon tana, but a protest was filed and an investigation of his election ordered. Before a report was made he resigned and returned to Montana where the question was decided by the people of his State and he was re-elected by a large majority in the year 1901 and served a full terrn in the Senate. He was placed on import ant committees and was a member of the Com mittee on Foreign Relations. At the close of his term he declined to be again a candidate for re-election and has been continuously engaged in the many industries which are owned and controlled by him.