Archives and Special Collections Mansfield Library, University of Montana Missoula MT 59812-9936 Email:
[email protected] Telephone: (406) 243-2053 This transcript represents the nearly verbatim record of an unrehearsed interview. Please bear in mind that you are reading the spoken word rather than the written word. Oral History Number: 396-018 Interviewee: Robert A. Poore Interviewer: Bob Brown Date of Interview: April 27, 2005 Project: Bob Brown Oral History Collection Bob Brown: Okay, we're interviewing Bob Poore, who was an attorney for many years here in Butte. Bob, when did you begin your practice in Butte? Robert Poore: Nineteen forty-nine. BB: And you were a native of Butte, you lived here before then? RP: Yes, born here in 1919 in Butte. BB: And so you've lived here your entire life? RP: My entire life, except for periods away in the service and college, law school, that sort of thing. BB: Now, W.A. Clark, the copper baron, died in the middle 1920s, so if you were born in 1919, you probably never met him. RP: No, I did not, but my wife, she was Pauline Wild and her grandfather was [Jesse] Wharton. He was W.A. Clark's right-hand man. Clark gave him the actual position of head of the Butte Electric Railway. But really he was his buddy, sort of like the way [Harry] Hopkins was to Franklin Roosevelt, you know, just kind of a confidante. Clark, at one time, according to our family [inaudible] not been disputed by anybody, said to Mr.