1904 – W.A. and J. Ross Clark establish the Montana Land Company to manage lands northeast of Los Alamitos (present north Long Beach and Lakewood).
1905 – Clarks have completed rail line from San Pedro to Salt Lake. Needing a water stop for trains, they purchase a desert ranch property and then develop the new townsite of Las Vegas.
1906 – William A. Clark moves permanently to New York; J. Ross Clark and W.A. Clark junior run Clark interests. The Clarks sister, ____ Bonner, is also involved with he SoCal operation. Her son Clark Bonner will eventually manage all the Montana Land Company interests from the 1920s on. (Need more info on this).
In 1907, the Interstate Commerce Commission commenced extensive investigations into E.H. Harriman’s railroad activities. During the California portion of these hearings, led by the commissioner from California, Franklin K. Lane, the public was finally apprised of just how thoroughly Harriman dominated the promoters and managers of the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake city Railroad. Under oath, J. Ross Clark and Thomas E. Gibbon reluctantly divulged that Harriman held the ultimate control in all essential matters. The key agreement was that the Salt Lake Company was prohibited from dealing with any other carriers on better terms than it got from the Southern Pacific-Union Pacific. This was interpreted to mean, in the words of the Los Angeles Examiner, “that the quality of the service over the Salt Lake was not to be any better than that of the Southern Pacific line, or that the Salt Lake was not to give any quicker service from Los Angeles and Salt Lake City than could be made over the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific by way of Sacramento.” Thus the possible twenty-four-hour savings in running time by the new route was nullified by the dictates of one of the most domineering of business monopolists.48
http://www.wemweb.com/arduous-road/build_railroad.html