Title: Clark (Charles Badger, Jr.) Papers,

Date (inclusive): 1905-1967

Collection number: Mss77

Creator: Leland C. Case

Extent: 0.5 linear ft.

Repository: University of the Pacific. Library. Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections

Shelf location: For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.

Language: English.

Collection is open for research.

[Identification of item], Clark (Charles Badger, Jr.) Papers, Mss77, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

Charles Badger Clark (1883-1957), dubbed "the cowboy poet" after his first book was published (1915), became the "poet lariat" by official decree of Leslie Jensen, South Dakota's governor (1937-1938). Clark's father, one of Dakota Territory's pioneer Methodist circuit riders, was founder of Dakota Wesleyan University at Mitchell, S. D. and a superintendent of the Black Hills Methodist Mission. His father's parsonage was in the gold town of Deadwood and there Badger grew up. As a young man he contracted tuberculosis, and, after his doctor suggested a move to the Southwest, Clark adventured six years as an Arizona ranch hand. While working near Tombstone he wrote his first poetry. Clark subsequently sold poems and short stories to Christian Century, The Rotarian, Scribner's, Collier's, Sunset, and other magazines. Early collections of Clark's poems were published as Sun and Saddle Leather (1915) and Grass Grown Trails (1917). During the 1920's he traveled the Redpath Chautauqua circuit reading his verse and speaking. During the 1930's he built a picturesque cabin in Custer State Park, and there at Legion Lake, spent his mature years. Clark's poems "Cowboy's Prayer" and "Job" were especially popular. Leland D. Case, editor of Together and later Executive Secretary of Westerners Foundation, was made literary executor by Badger Clark's heirs. Case and the Westerners Foundation were committed to the project of reprinting a collection of Clark's poems under the title of Sun and Saddle Leather.

The collection includes: original poems and clippings of Clark poems, most published in Sun and Saddle Leather by Chapman and Grimes of Boston (copyright 1914); copies of manuscript poems; and, correspondence (1957-1967): with Clark's nephew, Dr. Edwin E. Clark, Professor of Electrical Engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, from Clark's literary executor, Leland Case, as well as between the Westerners Foundation and Clark's former publishers.