|
Along the line of the
Missouri-Illinois
Railroad
A collection
of intersting features on the Missouri-Illinois Railroad.
Overview
Reminders
of
the past abound in the areas once served by the MR&BT and M-I
Railroads. We feel it is necassary to provide some historical data
about these areas for one to gain a better understanding of the
important role these small railroads played during their operation.
ST. FRANCOIS
COUNTY INDUSTRIALLY (1924)
By R. H.
Womack
An
industrial review of St. Francois County, while resembling the same
sort of description of the majority of Missouri counties in many
respects, must of necessity be entirely different in others. The
ordinary industrial activities of a rural community are to be found
here as elsewhere, in the form of milling interests, etc., which are a
natural outlet through which the produce of the agricultural portions
of the county must flow. Of the milling enterprises in St. Francois
County several are of more than ordinary importance and their products,
in the form of flour and feed, are widely known throughout a large
territory embracing a group of several states. Their output is large
and their products of a superior quality.
Two
wagon
manufacturers are located in the county and still do a thriving
business in spite of the rapid evolution which is taking place in
methods of transport.
The automobile business here, as
elsewhere,
has leaped forward with tremendous growth during the past decade and
each succeeding year witnesses great expansion. Practically every well
known make of machine has an established agency in the field and the
variety of motor vehicles to be found among the people is almost as
great as that found in any great city. As an example of the growth in
motor vehicles the Missouri Blue Book shows that on September 1, 1922,
St. Francois County had 2,612 registered motor cars. September 1, 1923,
the registration was 4,213, or almost double. It is a conservative
prediction, we believe, to state that September 1, 1924, will more than
likely see more than six thousand motor cars in this county, or based
on the population of 31,403, one car to every five people, or
approximately one to each family.
Manufacturing,
in a broad
sense of the term, has not yet found a place in the county. A shirt
factory is now in operation at Bonne Terre, offering employment to a
considerable number of the female population of that city. A modern
iron foundry, also located at Bonne Terre, does a large business in
gray iron castings, mostly for the mining interests.
Several
large wholesale houses are located in the county for the distribution
of groceries, etc. These firms do a large business which has grown with
leaps and bounds from year to year.
There are
several makers
of soft drinks in the county, two large dairy and creamery
establishments, several ice plants, lumber dealers, etc., and several
hundred dealers in general merchandise, clothing, shoes, hardware, etc.
In recent years the tie industry was of more than minor
importance,
but the depletion of the forests has materially decreased the number of
available ties, so much so in fact that the production at this time is
not sufficient to care for the demand for replacement ties for the M.R.
& B.T. Railway alone.
The great fields of
granite in the
southern portions of the county are as yet scarcely touched and lie for
the most part undisturbed in the wild confusion in which they were left
during the great upheavals of passing ages thousands of years ago.
Undoubtedly future generations will find here a rich field for
commercial effort.
TRANSPORTATION
The
transportation facilities of St. Francois County consist of the
Mississippi River & Bonne Terre Railway, traversing it from
north
to south and connecting with the Missouri Pacific at Riverside, its
northern terminus; the Missouri-Illinois Railway, crossing the county
from east to west, offering a connection with the Illinois coal fields
through the medium of a railway ferry at Ste. Genevieve and having its
western terminus at Bismarck, where it also connects with the Missouri
Pacific; the St. Francois County Railroad, an electric line connecting
the Lead Belt with Farmington and having a connection with the M.R.
& B.T. at Flat River and one with the Missouri Pacific, Belmont
Branch, at Delasus; the main line of the old Iron Mountain system, now
the Missouri Pacific, which follows close to the western border of the
county from north to south, and the Belmont Branch of the same system
which leaves the main line at Bismarck, cuts across the southern
portion of the county and leads to the lowlands country of southeast
Missouri. The railway lines are supplemented by a system of hard
surface roads that reach almost every portion of the county.
Of
the railroads entering our midst, by far the most important, locally,
is the M.R. & B.T. This line, while short in mileage, furnishes
the
main artery through which our commerce flows. It is a splendid equipped
thoroughly modern system, properly ballasted and laid with heavy steel;
and owns and operates thousands of cars and dozens of locomotives. A
through traffic arrangement is maintained with the Missouri Pacific by
which passenger business is handled through without change to St. Louis
through the connection at Riverside, and the great bulk of St. Francois
County freight flows through the same gateway on its way to the markets
of the outer world. The M.R. & B.T., when compared to many of
the
so-called great systems of the country, will more than hold its own in
point of construction, equipment and service. Its problems are not
those of the larger carriers with long hauls representing a heavy
proportion of their tonnage and offering the medium of classified fast
freight service as a ready solution. The lower end of their line, that
within our midst, is a network of short branches and industrial
connections which serve the great mining industry and make the
railway's task the more complex and difficult because of its
resemblance to terminal, or switching service, which the longer
carriers have to contend with only in their more important terminals.
In spite of the difficulty of their task and the wide range of their
activity the vast tonnage of the district is handled with a speed and
promptness which is more than ordinarily good, and the smoothness of
operation, demonstrated through the lack of confusion and remarkable
freedom from accident, speaks volumes for the efficiency of the
management and the ability of the men.
The
Missouri-Illinois,
formerly the Illinois Southern, might be classed as a coal road. Its
chief business is the transporting of coal from the Illinois fields to
the Lead Belt. The management is practically identical with that of the
M.R. & B.T., and many improvements have been installed and
better
service maintained since the reorganization of the line several years
since. In view of the vast coal tonnage used in this district the
importance of this link in our transportation facilities cannot be
overestimated.
The St. Francois County Railroad is
the only
connection with Farmington, the county seat of the county. The line has
never been a success financially, and, due to the difficulty and
expense of handling freight over its sharp curves, Farmington has
suffered somewhat from lack of transportation facilities. Present plans
of the management contemplate the elimination of these curves and the
change of the motive unit from electricity to steam, a change which
will undoubtedly react to the advantage of the entire district,
Farmington in particular.
The Missouri Pacific is
not a large
factor in our commercial life. Like a famous movie actor in one of his
popular productions, it is merely "Passing Through." It offers a medium
of fast through passenger service to and from St. Louis by way of
Bismarck, and, of course, is of vital concern to us through the fact
that it handles all tonnage to and from that city from Riverside. It is
one of the really great systems of America and our bustling community
is only one of many along their thousands of miles of main line tracks.
They take an active interest in our welfare, are vitally concerned with
our success, but naturally leave the solution of local problems to
their local connection, taking up the burden where it leaves off.
MINING
After
all is said about other interests and activities we must naturally find
ourselves face to face with the one great interest that overshadows all
others in our community, that great giant of industry which goes
steadily forward upon every side of us and under our cities and towns
throughout twenty-four hours of every day in every year. Without the
mining interests of St. Francois County there would be no need for the
more than thirty-one thousand people who live and thrive in this, one
of the small counties of Missouri in point of area. It is a vast
enterprise that reaches out into every known corner of the world for it
is safe to say that at no point to which you may travel will you be far
from some necessary article in the manufacture of which lead is a vital
factor, an important unit, and St. Francois County is the lead capital
of the universe. Millions of dollars are invested in the physical
plants necessary to take it from the heart of the earth, crush it, mill
it and prepare it for the waiting world. Only recently the St. Joseph
Lead Company purchased the holdings of the Federal Lead Company in this
district in a deal which is reported to have involved the changing of
hands of ten million dollars. And the Federal Lead Company was only one
of several large operators in our midst. The lead interests of St.
Francois County date back almost to the beginning of settlement in
southeast Missouri by white men, and according to the statement of the
head of the largest operating company here made recently to the Flat
River Chamber of Commerce, will continue to be an important factor in
world commerce for nearly a century to come.
EARLY HISTORY
As
early as 1700 a Frenchman named Penicaut is reported to have discovered
lead in Missouri. He was a member of LeSueur's party of explorers and
his discovery is supposed to have been somewhere along the Meramec
River.
(Note--For the facts recorded here the writer wishes
to
give credit to Walter Benton Ingalls in his volume, "Lead and Zinc in
the United States", Ernest Robertson Buckley, in his "Geology of the
Disseminated Lead Deposits of St. Francois and Washington Counties."
Missouri Bureau of Geology and Mines, Vol. IX, Part 1; and to A. P.
Watt, former metallurgist of the S.L.S. & R. Works of National
Lead
Company, from a paper prepared by him for the St. Louis meeting of the
American Institute of Mining Engineers in October, 1917, entitled
"Concentration Practice in Southeast Missouri.")
The
Penicaut
discovery led to the granting of what is known as the Crozat patents by
Louis XIV, of France, in 1712, with special privileges in regard to the
development of mining interests in the then Louisiana Territory. In
1717 John Law procured the Crozat patents for the Mississippi Company,
promoted by him, and active preparations for mining were begun. In 1719
unsuccessful efforts to smealt lead were made by one Sieur de Lochon
somewhere along the Meramec River. This effort was made for the
Mississippi Company. In 1720 Philip Francis Renault, who had been
appointed director-general of the mines of the Mississippi Company in
1719, arrived at Kankaskia with 200 artisans and miners, and a large
number of slaves. Exploring parties were sent out from the main party
and one of these parties discovered the deposits of Mine la Motte, in
Madison County, which property took its name from M. La Motte, a
mineralogist accompanying Renault, under whom it was worked. In 1723
Mine la Motte was granted to Renault and in 1724-26 what were known as
Old Mine and Mine Renault were discovered in Washington County, north
of Potosi. About 1731 the Mississippi Company failed and its charter
reverted to the French Crown. Little or nothing was being done toward
mining. About 1738-40 the Mine la Motte property was considered public
and the people in general worked at it. Much mineral was removed in
this manner. In 1742 Renault returned to France and the first chapter
in Missouri's mining history was brought to a close. In 1763 what was
known as Mina a Burton, at Potosi, was discovered and immediate
exploitation followed. For the next thirty years this property,
together with Old Mine and Mine Renault, in the same neighborhood, and
Mine la Motte, in Madison County, were the principal sources of lead in
operation. In 1769 the settlement at Mine la Motte was attacked and
destroyed by the Chickasaw Indians, the mine was abandoned and not
reopened until 1780 or 1782.
In 1795 what was
known as Mine a
Layne was discovered about 16 miles southeast of Potosi, and in 1797
the first authentic discovery in St. Francois County was recorded in
the location of Mine a Maneto, on Big River. In 1801 Mine a Joe, later
called Bogy Mine, was also located on Big River in this county, and
1803 witnessed the discovery of several more deposits in Washington
County. In 1806 New Diggings, near Potosi, were brought in and are
reported to have yielded about 1,000 tons of galena for several years.
In this same year the first heavy production in St. Francois County was
recorded at Hazel Run, about five miles northeast of Bonne Terre, which
is said to have produced 500 tons during the first year alone. In 1824
Joseph Schultz discovered the Valle Mines, seven miles north of Bonne
Terre, and in 1825 Bisch's Mine, near Valle Mine, was brought in.
During
this early period of activity the lead ore obtained in Missouri was
entirely galena, obtained from shallow surface working seldom going
much over ten feet in depth. It is estimated by present-day authorities
that the ore contained upward of eighty per cent pure lead in view of
the yield obtained from the crude methods of smelting in vogue, which
yield ran slightly less than fifty per cent, or 700 to 800 pounds of
metal per ton. All the ore was smelted on what was known as log heaps
or in a crude contraption called the log furnace, which was built
against the side of a hill sloping about 45 degrees, by placing three
large oak logs in the furnace transversely, resting on the ledges at
the side. Small split logs were set up around the inside vertically and
about 5,000 pounds of ore placed inside, covered with logs and the fire
started. Previous to going into the furnace the ore was cleaned by hand
and broken into pieces averaging about fifteen pounds each. The fire
was kept low during a period of about twelve hours, or longer, to bring
about the reaction. During this latter period of time lead trickled out
into a basin to the extent of seven to eight hundred pounds per ton of
ore, the balance going to waste in the ashes.
About
1799 Moses
Austin came to Missouri and introduced what was known as the ash
furnace, wherein he crushed the ashes left by the former log furnace,
charged them into his ash furnace, a rudely constructed reverberatory
with a sloping hearth, and extended the reaction left incomplete in the
log furnaces by about two hours extra heating whereby he obtained a
further production of about fifteen per cent. The old log furnaces,
unable to cope with the new method, rapidly disappeared until about
1802 but one of them was known to be in existence. However, they made
their reappearance later at more isolated places and from then on until
about 1836 they, together with the ash furnace, furnished the sole
means of smelting the ore. In 1836 the Scotch hearth furnace was
introduced to Missouri by Major Manning, of Webster, and from that time
on they gradually, but slowly, supplanted the older methods. In 1838
the first efforts to mine and smelt other than the galena deposits was
made at Mine la Motte, when new furnaces were erected for the purpose
of handling what was commonly called "dry bone." This movement never
assumed sufficient importance to have any great bearing on production.
From
1831 to 1840 Missouri, one of the chief sources of lead, produced about
3,600 tons of that metal per annum. About 1848 the presence of lead in
quantity was proven in southwest Missouri, the Joplin district. By 1857
mining was actively engaged in at Granby, and it is estimated that some
three hundred shafts were put down in this district between 1851 and
1860. At this period of mining history southeast Missouri began to lose
prestige. With the new discoveries of surface workings in the Joplin
district and the almost complete exhaustion of the same deposits in
this section many thought that it was the end of this territory from a
mining standpoint. However, even then some of the far-sighted men had
visions of what might be in store for the industry in the form of
deeper workings. In 1864 the St. Joseph Lead Company was organized and
purchased the workings known as the La Grave Mines at Bonne Terre. The
following year active operations began on the property through the
completion of a mining, milling and smelting plant. For several years
production was small. In 1869 lead mining as we know it today was born
through the introduction of the first diamond drill by the St. Joseph
Lead Company, as a direct result of which the immense deposits of
disseminated ore were almost immediately discovered at a depth of about
120 feet. From that time on southeast Missouri again came into the
lead. The old surface workings faded into utter insignificance when
compared to the magnitude of the new bodies of ore. The entire
processes of mining went through a period of change due to the low
grade nature of the disseminated ore as compared to the richness of the
surface deposits of galena. Milling methods passed through a period of
complete revolution and gradually the great comprehensive plants of
today came into being.
In 1880 a railroad was
completed from
St. Joseph plant to Summit, a fact which greatly stimulated production,
but was never adequate to properly serve the district. In 1890 the M.R.
& B.T. Ry. was completed to Riverside. The reduction [sic] of
ore
in this district is an expensive process that has called for the
building of immense plants at staggering cost. In 1890 the Flat River
district first came into prominence, and the growth of the industry
since that time has been little short of phenomenal. Today
approximately five thousand men are engaged in the mining and milling
operations of the district, and the weekly pay roll is approximately
seventy-five to eighty thousand dollars. The problems, from a chemical
standpoint, are simple, but the low grade ore necessitates mining and
milling operations on a gigantic scale that precludes the possibility
of handling except by large companies with ample capital and large
resources. At the present time the operating companies consist of the
St. Joseph Lead Company, which has expanded its original holdings
through the acquisition of the property of the Doe Run Lead Company in
1913 and the holdings of the Federal Lead Company in 1923; the St.
Louis Smelting and Refining Works of the National Lead Company, and the
Desloge Consolidated Lead Company.
|
|
|
 |
• Home
