| William Andrews Clark already was a successful businessman in Montana Territory before he came to Butte in 1872, having been involved in freighting, wholesale trade, and banking in Bannack, Virginia City and Deer Lodge. When he decided to enter the new field of silver and copper mining, the thorough Clark typically attended the Columbia School of Mines for a year. He built Butte's first smelter, and its first water system and electrical plant. In 1884, the year he chaired the territory's second constitutional convention (ending in Montana's second unsuccessful attempt at statehood), he also began construction of this mansion. Its three floors and 30 rooms would take four years and $260,000 to complete, by which time Clark was fighting the "War of the Copper Kings" after his defeat as territorial delegate to Congress. This mansion's "modern Elizabethan" architectural style was Clark's favorite. Throughout the interior are rich touches of fine hardwoods, including mahogany, cherry, laurel, sycamore, oak and both birdseye and curly maple. The mansion's nine Fireplaces are adorned with imported color tiles, each capped by a hand-carved mantle in hardwood to match the room's decor.
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