George A. Clark

President & General Manager

George A. Clark was a big, awkward, disheveled man, moody and tempestuous, reflexively profane and ribaldry humorous, and he knew himself better than most. He was nineteen years old when he began his career with the Rahway Valley on June 10, 1920. His father had been good on the books, caring for accounting, rates, tariffs, and regulations, but not so much on operating matters. That responsibility fell to the younger Clark. Together, the two men had helped the RV turn a corner. The property began to take on an aura of success. However, with his father’s death, the thirty-one year old found the undivided responsibility of the line’s fortunes squarely in his lap.  

The Great Depression was worsening. Unemployment reached twenty-five percent. Thirty-four million people belonged to families with no regular full-time wage earner. Two million homeless Americans wandered about the country in hopes of finding work. The RV was not immune to this cataclysm. The small industries and building suppliers, which dotted the railroad’s route, gave the RV less business. Industrial production had fallen by nearly forty-five percent between 1929 and 1932, home building had dropped by eighty percent over the same period, and the RV’s revenues fell by thirty-six percent. Clark’s first year at the helm was marked by the third in a succession of deficit years. 

George Arthur Clark was born in Rochester, New York, the hometown of his parents, Roger A. Clark and Mary Amalia Wittman, on March 26, 1901. He spent his formative years, however, in Oregon. Clark’s father had moved the family westward in 1909 to take a position with the Central Railroad of Oregon. He attended grade school in the sparsely settled lumbering town of Union, Oregon. The family moved two-hundred miles further west, across the state, when Clark’s father took a position with the Portland Railway Light & Power Co. interurban line. Clark attended high school in Gresham, Oregon but dropped out in his sophomore year. He claimed to have departed academia in favor of working as a lumberjack; he even asserted to have had a stint as a sheep herder. In 1919, Clark secured his very first railroad job at Bull Run, Oregon, where his father was agent. 

The fish and game of the western state was plentiful. Clark was an avid outdoorsman, both a prolific fisherman and hunter. As a young kid, he enjoyed the trout and salmon on the Bull Run and Sandy rivers. Clark’s father became agent at Boring, Oregon and, shortly thereafter, took a three month leave of absence to go east to assist with the Rahway Valley. While his father was away, Clark held down the agent’s position at Boring. There were times when he found the job – well, boring. Responsibility did not weigh heavily on him then and, in later years, admitted that occasionally he would close the office and go fishing when he was supposed to be out collecting checks from shippers. He recounted, “I took pretty good care of the General Office in Portland as Superintendent Fields and Auditor Grilley received daily shipments. Whether or not all of these salmon were caught legitimately I do not care to recall, but I understand a couple of Fish and Game Wardens rested much easier after I was gone.” Clark worked at the interurban line’s depot in nearby Gresham for a while after his father returned, before his father decided to move the family east to take a position with the RV. 

The RV hired Clark too, he filled the position of Springfield agent. The depot was located at the foot of the grade to Summit. Clark, an ardent prankster, would grease the rails outside his post. The locomotive’s drivers would slip and the train crew, having lost all traction, would be obliged to back up and take a second crack at the hill – all to Clark’s amusement. The adolescent angst was soon stymied. The elder Clark groomed his son. He soon acquired a slew of titles, including General Freight Agent, Auditor, and Second Vice President. Clark’s father trained him on the books and dragged him to American Short Line Railroad Association meetings, stating that his father used to “make me go.” He matured, settled down, and married Muriel Alberta Wynne in 1927. The couple had three children: Shirley, Robert, and Carol.

When Louis Keller died in 1922, he had directed his trustee to destroy several notes that evidenced debts owed to him by the Baltusrol Golf Club and the Calumet Club. The RV enjoyed no such luck. Charles Keller Beekman insisted that a profit be shown from operations in 1933 as to permit the railroad to pay off some of its indebtedness to the Keller Estate. The year proved to be the worst of the depression. Despite this, Clark eked out a small net profit of $875. He noted, however, “This was only accomplished by sacrificing road and motive power maintenance and our people learned this to their sorrow.” Roosevelt sent an unprecedented number of bills to Congress, all of which passed with ease. The President’s programs and reforms, collectively known as the “New Deal” for the American people, included unemployment relief, banking reform, public works programs, social security, and the end of prohibition. The nation slowly began to heal. The federal government’s infusion of stimulus into the American economy trickled down to the little RV. Clark was able to operate the line at a profit in 1936 and every year thereafter.

Clark had a well-trained, highly cohesive group of railroaders working with him. “We’ve got 21 here, including me,” he said. “One train crew - engineer, fireman, conductor and two brakemen - a section crew of six, three agents, two men in the shop, and the rest of us here in the office.”

Generally, Clark believed in “. . . leaving the boys alone – they know their jobs. I don’t have to tell them that our only scheduled train leaves here at 8:30 AM on the button; I don’t have to tell them we keep working until everything is finished. They know those things.” There was a close camaraderie on the RV, it could be sensed. It could be felt in Clark’s telling of “the fun we have here.” It could be proved by the way the tiny railroad overcame every obstacle.

The train crew worked long hours for short line pay; anyone who complained was likely to get a short answer from Clark. Many of Clark’s employees were afraid of him, but some wouldn’t have wanted to work anywhere else. Some, because of Clark, couldn’t even get work elsewhere. “George Clark had the theory that he did not intend to train an employee in the many facets of railroading for that employee to leave and put George Clark’s training to use on another line.” Clark would purposefully give poor recommendations to employees who left for other railroads, after having learned the railroading trade on his line. Bob Hoeft reflected on Clark’s actions, “I can’t blame Clark in a way as it is true that his training on the Rahway Valley was very valuable. The fact that the equipment and conditions on the RV were very primitive made damned good railroaders out of anyone who was there any length of time.”

Clark believed “his” railroad was “the best barometer in the world for getting a line on business.” The RV served a diverse group of industries which, Clark believed, was key to the railroad’s success. He once stated, “We don’t look for big industry. Instead of a few big fellows, we have dozens of little ones. In slow times, the big ones shut down and everything stops. If you have little fellows, some of them are sure to keep on.” There was a brief economic recession, at World War II's end, as industries shifted back to peacetime activities. A lack of diversification, Clark felt, may have accounted for the trouble larger railroads encountered after the war. “All those big fellows went like mad with war contracts. Then the war ended and the bottom fell out. The bottom didn’t fall out around here.”

As the years wore on, time began to take its toll on the railroad’s longtime President and General Manager. Clark had his first heart attack in 1954. He gave up cigars and tried to work a little less. A third generation was now represented on the Rahway Valley: his son had become General Freight Agent and Car Accountant. Clark hired his son, Robert G. “Bob” Clark, in 1948. Starting him at the bottom, Clark allow his son to work his way up in hopes that one day he would take the “top spot” of running the railroad, after Clark himself had retired. 

George Clark was a deep sharer in two old American passions: the railroad, and the West where he grew up. Clark had been back a few times on visits, and talked for years of giving up railroading and returning to the high country. As his health failed, visiting the Rockies was denied him, but retirement was something he thought about with increasing contemplation. Then, Clark made his decision – he was finally going to retire. In a letter to Louis S. Weeks, Jr., of the law firm Beekman & Bogue, dated March 18, 1967, Clark notified the firm of his pending resignation:

“I have been very loyal to this company and I have given it my very best, at all times, however, my health is such that I can no longer take it and I now wish to call it quits. The aggravation which confronts me daily, mainly with labor, is such that I no longer have a job as I am nothing but a poor slave. Very frankly, I no longer enjoy my work. This has been my home for just about my entire life and our people have been good to me, however, I would like to secure some little enjoyment, fun and relaxation out of my remaining days before “SAINT PETER BLOWS HIS HORN.” I am working seven days each week, at least 14 hours each day, with the possible exception of Sundays when I close the door, every now and then, around 2:00 PM. I have only taken five short vacations of less than two weeks each during my forty seven years with the Rahway Valley so I am just plain pooped out and in railroad parlance I wish to pull the pin and call it quits.”

Despite his wish to retire, Clark’s dedication to the Rahway Valley was unwavering. Clark put off his departure from railroading; he stated “I will stick around for a little while as I wish to clear up certain things for the company.” Towards the end, Clark had been living in his office, keeping an eye on the property, even on the weekends. On Monday, April 7, 1969, Clark was still on the job, ready to begin another week’s work, when he suffered a major heart attack. 

He has gone west now, having done what he could to perpetuate a small institution, having done what he could to keep life from being dull.