Eli P. Clark (1847–1931) was a pioneer railway builder of Southern California and a leader in the civic, philanthropic and social activities of Los Angeles.

There, Clark was associated with his father in the management and working of the farm during the summer months, and in the winter taught school in the neighborhood of his home.

In Prescott, where he continued to make his home, Clark became interested in the railway business, then of vital import in the territory, and aided materially in securing the passage of a bill by the legislature granting a subsidy of $4,000 a mile for a railroad to be built from Prescott to connect with the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad at Seligman, Arizona.

[2] In 1891, Clark came to Los Angeles to be associated with his brother-in-law, General Sherman, in the construction and operation of electric railways in the city and surrounding country.

It and other properties would eventually be purchased by Henry E. Huntington in September, 1898 and would ultimately become Los Angeles’ illustrious Yellow Car system.

[4] The growth of the beach district also gave great opportunities for successful enterprises, and another line, the Pasadena and Pacific Railway, between Los Angeles and Santa Monica, was opened for traffic April 1, 1896.

This line became the nucleus of a new railway system, the Los Angeles Pacific Railway, incorporated in June, 1898, which covered much of the west side of Los Angeles area through Hollywood and what would become Beverly Hills, Westwood, Santa Monica, Venice and Culver City, and which included a line from Santa Monica down the coast to Redondo Beach.

Though Sherman and Clark had managed to salvage the earlier Los Angeles and Pasadena Electric line when they lost control of the Los Angeles Consolidated Electric Railway, they lost control of that line in January, 1898 and Henry Huntington eventually acquired it.

[6] In 1906, Sherman and Clark sold a controlling interest in their LAP system to E.H. Harriman’s Southern Pacific Railroad for a reported six million dollars.

The opportunities offered in the northern country appealed to Clark, and in 1906, he organized and became president of the Mount Hood Railway and Power Company, at Portland, Oregon.

By the fall of 1905, realizing that a more efficient means of transporting people to the popular beach areas would someday be necessary, they acquired the right of way for a projected subway and purchased property from Hill Street to the Vineyard powerhouse near present-day Venice and La Brea Boulevards.