Clark Churchill was born in Pennsylvania during June 1836. In 1861, he traveled to San Francisco where he studied law. He was considered to be very bright.
During 1863, Churchill relocated to Virginia City, Nevada, where he became a junior partner with an established law firm, also serving as city attorney there in 1865. Clark returned to San Francisco during 1866-1877, winning new laurels at the bar.
In 1877 he removed to Prescott, Arizona. While there, in addition to his legal and official duties, he successfully carried through the great project of the Arizona Canal. His business interests also prospered.
While on a professional visit to Phoenix in 1880, he was so impressed with the great resources and fertility of the soil in the Salt River Valley that he determined to take up residence there, making the development of the Valley his life’s work. He served as territorial attorney general in 1881, dividing his time between Prescott and Phoenix.
He invested heavily in lands in Phoenix, developing the Churchill Addition and building a mansion at 5th St. and Van Buren.
Clark Churchill was a high-ranking member of the Masons, a member of the National Republican Committee, the territorial adjutant general for four years and attorney general for six years. Toward the end of his life he suffered a downturn in fortunes and eventually had to sell his mansion. Acquired in 1897 by the City of Phoenix, it became Phoenix High School.
Churchill’s wife and two nephews are handsomely memorialized in the family plot in the Masons Cemetery, but he is not. - adapted from a story by Bob Cox
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