{"id":8922,"date":"2012-05-01T13:08:54","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T21:08:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=8922"},"modified":"2012-05-01T13:22:27","modified_gmt":"2012-05-01T21:22:27","slug":"a-blast-from-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/a-blast-from-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"A blast from the past"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In one of history’s curious quirks, a battle in New York<\/strong> probate court involves a fortune that was partly made right here<\/a> in Las Vegas<\/strong>. A pair of clarifications are in order. The late Huguette Clark<\/strong> (left<\/em>) has 50 blood relatives, although only 21 are eligible to partake of her estate<\/a>, should the courts decide that she died intestate<\/em>, having left four successive wills and no end of confusion in her wake If you’re any more distantly related to Mme. Clark than a half-grandniece or -nephew, you’re squat out of luck, buddy, no matter what the probate court eventually decrees.<\/p>\n

Also …<\/strong> a number of sources, including<\/a> A.D. Hopkins<\/strong>‘ The First 100<\/a><\/em>, published by Huntington Press<\/strong>, describe robber baron William Andrews Clark<\/strong> as a Confederate veteran of the Civil War<\/strong>. This version of events dates at least as far back as William Mangam<\/strong>‘s 1941 expos\u00e9 The Clarks — An American Phenomenon<\/em>, which the Clark family attempted (mostly successfully) to suppress. However, the Encyclopedia of World Biography<\/em>‘s Clark entry states<\/a>: “William Andrews Clark was born on Jan. 8, 1839, near Connellsville<\/strong>, Pa. He was educated in private academies in Pennsylvania<\/strong> and in Iowa<\/strong>, and after a short stint as a schoolmaster in Missouri<\/strong>, he studied law at Iowa Wesleyan College<\/strong>. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Clark enlisted in an Iowa regiment. Discharged in 1862, he moved to Colorado Territory<\/strong><\/em>.” (It also contains one of the few clear explanations of Clark’s dubious “election” to the U.S. Senate<\/strong> in 1899, a scandal that is widely credited with helping pave the way for the 17th Amendment<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Finally, multiple updates of the story — which evolved from an LVA<\/em> “Question of the Day<\/a>” — resulted in reporter Bill Dedman<\/strong> being credited both as being employed by MSNBC.com<\/strong> (correct) and by hackle-raising cable channel MSNBC<\/strong> (incorrect). They’re not only different, they’re headquartered an entire continent apart, which is perhaps even more confusing to those who’ve seen Dedman’s Huguette Clark reportage on NBC-TV<\/strong>‘s Today<\/em> show. In any event, I apologize for the muddle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In one of history’s curious quirks, a battle in New York probate court involves a fortune that was partly made right here in Las Vegas. A pair of clarifications are in order. The late Huguette Clark (left) has 50 blood … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51,140,101,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8922"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8922"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8925,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8922\/revisions\/8925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}