Descriptive Summary
Administrative Information
Biography
Scope and Content
Descriptive Summary
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.
Administrative Information
Access
Collection is open for research.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Clark (Charles Badger, Jr.) Papers, Mss77,
Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific
Library
Biography
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.
Scope and Content
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.