I receently learned that the private car that was built by Pullman in 1905 for Mr. later Senator Walter A. Clarke is now at the Illinois Railway Museum as the Chicago Great Northern 99 business car.

Does anyone know the name of the car when Senator Clarke owned it?

By the way he built the Salt Lake and Los Angeles Railroad with the City of Las Vegas as a stopping point along the way.

I am always surprised to how much railroad history from Nevada is found in other states.

Ted Miles retired but still likes Pullman cars

Mansions on Rails, Lucius Beebe, Howell-North books, shows car 2001 (number, no name), was built by Pullman for William Andrews Clarke on June 21, 1905.

JR

This is the kind of scenario that drives historians insane.

Are you talking about William Andrews CLARK?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_A._Clark

Or are you talking about his son, William A. Clark JUNIOR?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Andrews_Clark_Jr.

OR are you talking about WALTER Clark?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_A ... lter_Clark

There's no "Clarke," either William or Walter, that fits anywhere into this scenario.

NOW EVEN FURTHER,, are you discussing a nonexistent "Chicago Great Northern" car, or more likely Chicago Great WESTERN car 99, which IS at IRM?

https://www.irm.org/gallery/CGW99/aaa

Once we piece everything together accurately, we find you're referencing CGW 99, originally built in 1905 for the Butte Copper Mining Co. as their 2001, but in reality copper baron William A. Clark's private car, and sold to the CGW in 1926, presumably in the aftermath of Clark's passing in March 1925.

I've looked in a couple sources focusing on Clark and his controversial, tumultuous career and life (you think Donald Trump is bad?), and I've found not only no name for the car, but no mention of its acquisition or disposal, which suggests that as much as Clark may have been a pompous rail/copper baron, a degree of fictitious separation was maintained. It remains very possible that it simply bore the number 2001 without a name--by the time the car was built Clark was 66, one of America's richest men ever (before or since), had dealt with plenty of scandal both business-wise and in his private life (seriously, he made Donald Trump and Bill Clinton look like slackers in that department) and probably trying to keep a low profile in public.

Another consideration is that the Butte Copper Mining Co. was actually not the predecessor of the later massive Anaconda Copper or the Butte, Anaconda & Pacific RR, which were instead projects of the Rothschilds and Rockerfellers, not Clark's companies. In fact, I'm having trouble discerning exactly where this "Butte Copper Mining Co." even fits into the overall Butte copper boom, copper-mine-wise or railroad-wise........

Mr. Mitchell,
I thought by mentioning Senator Clarke's one term as a Senator it would seperate him from his son William, Jr.

Thank you for looking around about this interesting car. The owner sure led a wild life!
It is no surprise that he had a private car, as so many of the other rich men of his time did. But they usually gave them names.

Ted Miles, who likes Pullman cars

Private Pullman: The Gulfstream of the late 19th/early 20th Century.