The American copper entrepreneur and politician William Andrews Clark (1839-1925) was a key figure in forging statehood for Montana.

William Andrews Clark was born on Jan. 8, 1839, near Connellsville, Pa. He was educated in private academies in Pennsylvania and in Iowa, and after a short stint as a schoolmaster in Missouri, he studied law at Iowa Wesleyan College. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Clark enlisted in an Iowa regiment. Discharged in 1862, he moved to Colorado Territory.

Although Clark's career in Colorado was brief, it was productive, for it was his experience in the mines of the Central City district that brought into focus his lifelong obsession with the accumulation of wealth and political power. In 1863, attracted by the opportunities a new frontier offered an ambitious young man, Clark left Colorado for Montana. From a lucky strike in a claim near Bannack, he extracted $1500 worth of gold, which...