Chapter 15, pages 125-126
Clark, a community that once stood some two miles south of White Cloud on the Hastings-Sidney branch of the C.B. & Q. Railway, is one of two Mills County ghost towns which still has a commercial building in it. The Earl Bass Elevator at Clark, which he purchased in 1954 from Ray Collen, is still capable of use although it maintains a lonely vigil at its siding there.
The community was probably named for Justus Clark, a large landowner in that vicinity, and its site may have been platted by him although evidently no great amount of time was spent in doing so. Its plat as shown in the 1891 Atlas, has but a single street, “Fifth,” which started about one hundred feet east of the elevator, headed east on a southerly slant, and then due east for some four hundred feet more. The depot was north of the elevator and there was a fairly long siding. The post office was established January 31, 1879, Herman F. Wilkinson, postmaster. It was discontinued October 5, 1883.
The editor of The Malvern Leader reported in his April 19, 1883, issue that he had visited Clark while on a tour of White Cloud township and there he met Mr. Carey (E.C.) Kayton who managed the Kayton & Kinney elevator and also had a granary and warehouse there. The editor also met Mr. Clark Miller, proprietor of the general store and postmaster. Mr. L. L. Greenwalt, in his book, Seventy-Five Years of Progress, recalled that Clark had a number of houses although the plat shows only a have dozen building lots, all on the south side of Fifth Street.
Business was not rushing when The Leader editor visited Clark and he induced Mr. Kayton, who also had business interests in Strahan and Solomon, to accompany him to the former community where they found much commercial activity. Later the elevator was sold to Geo. F. Salyers & Co. (the Co. probably being Mr. Kayton who was Mr. Salyers’ brother-in-law). No records are available about Clark. By the time Mr. Bass acquired the elevator there was no sign of the former platted street and lots, other than the road leading to the elevator, and all land adjacent to the elevator was in cultivation.
