Doug Clark: Safe deposit find fostered big dreams but small result

Everybody’s had a “Hit it Big” fantasy now and then, as in …

• Nailing the Lottery for more than Saudi Arabia’s annual harem budget.

• Going out for a run and tripping over a gold nugget larger than Tom Cruise’s vanity.

• Having a dearly departed subscriber include you in his or her will along with a thoughtful message:

“Dear Doug,

“Thanks so much for all the many years of reading enjoyment. Please accept this $1 million gift as a token of my appreciation.”

Dreams – life is all about dreams.

But wouldn’t you know? Every now and then one of those jackpot wishes comes true.

Or lands close enough to make you crazy.

My brush with riches began a few months ago, shortly after my sweet mom passed from the planet. Attending to details, I drove to one of downtown Spokane’s bulkier banks with a key to the Clark Family safety deposit box.

After I proved who I was, a polite young banker took me inside a vault where we opened the box.

He stepped aside, presumably to let the moths fly out. Then I set about making an inventory of treasures that included a family ring, a couple rolls of silver dollars and a souvenir Seattle World’s Fair coin.

Sad.

Also tucked away in some of my father’s old paperwork was an item I hadn’t seen before.

It was an impressive-looking certificate with a gold seal.

Dated Oct. 1, 1965, it named my father and mother as the recipients of 250 shares of something called “Argo of Spokane, Inc.”

I called my brother, Dave, five seconds after leaving the bank.

“We’re rich!” I hollered. “We own 250 shares of Argo!”

“Oh, boy,” he answered. “What’s Argo?”

“I haven’t a clue,” I told him. “But it’s gotta be valuable.”

The way I figured it, 250 shares of AT&T or IBM, compounded by 50 years worth of splits and growth, would be sailing-away-on-a-yacht money.

A few weeks crawled by without being able to find out anything about Argo of Spokane. My Internet searches kept leading me to that Ben Affleck flick, which I’d already seen.

Running out of clues, I decided to take a look in the newspaper’s clip library or as we expendable, buyout-aged journalists call it, “The Morgue.”

As luck would have it, a sharp librarian was there for guidance.

She struck gold, finding a Spokesman-Review article headlined “New Housing Development Is Planned.” It was dated Oct. 3, 1965, just two days after the certificate was issued.

“Raleigh Hills, a 40-acre development in northwest Spokane with 100 home sites, will be the first project of a new company, Argo of Spokane, announced Victor G. Plese, Spokane Realtor.”

A hundred home sites?

Forty acres?

“We’re rich!” I told Dave, who had accompanied me to The Morgue.

Even better, the article said our land was “just north of the Spokane Rifle Club and south of the new Sundance Golf Course. It adjoins Riverside State Park.”

The news story also listed my father, Kenneth R. Clark, as the Argo of Spokane treasurer.

“We could set up a toll booth and clean up,” I said.

Finally, I knew what I had to do.

On Monday, I stopped by Plese Realty, 201 W. Francis, one of Spokane’s grand old real estate firms.

Who knows? Maybe they’ve been holding our Argo money for us in, say, a gunnysack, just waiting for the Clark Family to drop by and cash in those 250 shares.

Or not.

Rod Plese, 72, gave me a knowing smile when I showed him a photograph of the certificate.

“Argo of Spokane,” he said humorously. “That didn’t go anywhere.”

And the air went out of the balloon.

Plese is a terrific guy. Despite my unannounced visit, he took me into his office and graciously gave me a rundown.

This Argo story centers on the late A. Raleigh Godfrey (A.R. Go… Get it?), a close friend to both my dad and Rod’s dad, Victor.

Godfrey, said Plese, was a generous and jovial man who always picked up a meal tab and always wanted to put deals together with his pals.

So when he obtained the aforementioned property through an inheritance, Godfrey came up with a plan to develop the home sites. As an added attraction, the land had at least 1,600 feet of Spokane River frontage.

But that plan “fizzled” not too long after the initial Argo hoopla, explained Rod, who added that Godfrey’s next idea was to sell him the property.

Plese said the fact he was in his early 20s and didn’t have any money didn’t bother Godfrey, who drew up a contract on a napkin during lunch one day at the long-gone Flamingo on Division.

“I still have the napkin,” chuckled Plese.

And what a deal it was. Rod could have the acreage for $20,000, payable in $100-a-month installments.

Plese accepted. He even made a couple of payments, he said, when another event occurred. The state came to Godfrey wanting to add the property to its park.

Plese planned to use the land for his own outdoor paradise. But with some persuading from Godfrey and Victor, Rod said he finally relented and sold it all back for $5,000.

“I had a relationship with my dad that most people would envy,” said Plese.

So Godfrey “wound up selling it to the State of Washington,” added Plese, who laughs as he estimates the property’s current value at $1.5 million.

Oh, well …

“Our dreams went up in smoke,” said Dave, when I told him where our legacy went.

True. But at least we have the World’s Fair coin.