Despite local lore, The Lucky Strike hit paydirt

Ten or fifteen years ago, somebody sent me an article from a Sandpoint paper about the “Old Webb Mine,” located above Lightning Creek, northwest of Clark Fork. Webb Canyon there now shares its name.

According to the article, the mine apparently now serves as a hike-to site for backpackers. The article stated that “nobody really knows” the story of Old Webb, but quoted a long-time Clark Fork resident, one Mr. Derr, to the effect that people there believed that Webb had never taken much, if anything, out of the mine, and that he and it were never taken very seriously.

Well, I leap to defend the fabulous Webb mine, and the family honor, with all the alacrity and vigor they both deserve. Warwick Wiley Webb was my paternal grandfather. Perhaps better known as Wee, Wild, Wicked Warwick Wiley Webb, he was one of the founding fathers of Clark Fork, at least according to my family.

Anyway, I can attest that he did find the place. Warwick was born in Illinois, but his father, Masten Webb, and mother, Sara Holmes Webb, settled in Kansas after the Civil War. His father served in the 18th Illinois Infantry, part of Grant’s Army of the West.

Warwick was raised a wheat farmer in the days when it was done with large teams of horses. He became a “master teamster,” to quote another knowledgeable family member. He married Effie Bell Huggins, of Ottumwa, Kans., whose father, John Huggins, had also fought in the Civil War (and on the same side).

They came to Clark Fork around the turn of the century. He built a large house across from the school yard. He was one of the builders of the Clark Fork School, and is identified as such on the building’s cornerstone. He once bit a man’s nose off in a fight, according to additonal family lore. He had two mining claims, and worked them for years single-handedly, though some of my brothers claim they were forced to assist. The mine on Lightning Creek was called The Lucky Strike. I have copies of official stock certificates, issued in his name. It was no joke. He hauled equipment up there by horse team, prior to any roads, and built a turbine in a nearby creek to drive a compressor to power air-drills.

Contrary to the opinions of locals — who were subsisting on a diet of tree stumps at the time — he made a living off that mine all his life, working it only in the summer months when the creek ran. They had two sons, Delbert and John, and two daughters, Elsie and Ethel. Ethel Webb Nolan served as postmistress of Clark Fork up into the 1960s. My father, Delbert, sired 11 children in Clark Fork, of which I am the last.

I hope this straightens things out. My plan is to email this letter and also post it, and I will be using postage purchased with the entirety of my inheritance from the fabulous Lucky Strike bonanza.

JOSEPH WEBB

Astoria, Ore.