People/engineer

Clara Clark

Clara Clark (1876–1959), engineer, from United States. Linked to gold, copper.

The lucky break

The first student to enrol at the Montana School of Mines, she graduated in 1904 as one of its first two women mining engineers.1

The downfall

In 1907 she married and left the mining profession.1

Legacy

Worked as an assayer at Gibsonville, Idaho, and as a consultant to William A. Clark, and owned parts of claims in Butte. She was the only female life member of the American Mining Congress from Montana and kept encouraging other women to take up mining engineering.1

Story cards

Drag to turn the globe

Where next

People

Partner ofIsabel LittleTwo of Montana Tech's first women mining engineers.1ExamplesClara KinneyTwo women in US copper: mine owner Clara Kinney and assayer Clara Clark.2Partner ofWilliam A. ClarkOne of Montana Tech's first women engineers assessed ore for him.1

Places

Worked atButteShe was the first student to enrol at the Montana School of Mines.1

Sources

  1. 2025 Inductees from Mining's Past Mining Foundation of the Southwest
  2. 2026 Inductees from Mining's Past Mining Foundation of the Southwest

Pictures on this page: Waclark.jpg, Pirie MacDonald (Public domain).

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

Keep exploring

Stories with these minerals

Lessons from historyThe deposits that made fortunes, and who kept them1485-2008A Caterpillar 797 haul truck with a worker standing beside a front tyre that is more than twice his heightEquipmentHaul trucksHauling · Open-pit minesA large red crusher inside the steel frame of a crushing plant, with conveyors and walkways around itEquipmentCrushersProcessing · CrushingA large grey ball mill studded with liner bolts in a long mill hallEquipmentBall mills and SAG millsProcessing · Grinding

All mining storiesThe world runs on rockAll mineralsMining by country

Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Haul trucks by Lechhabmed, CC BY-SA 4.0; Crushers by photosmith2011, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0; Ball mills and SAG mills by photosmith2011, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0. Pictures: Kimberley, South Africa: miners and washing gear at the Bultfontein diamond mine. Woodburytype, 1888, after a photograph by Robert Harris., Harris, Robert, active 1881-1888. (Public Domain Mark 1.0).