Information Sheet

 

 

R         St. Joe Minerals Corporation.

48                    Collection, 1864-1974.

                                    48 volumes.

 

MICROFILM

 

 

 

These are business records from mining concerns in Missouri’s “Old Lead Belt.”  The col­lec­tion includes records from the St. Joseph Lead Company, the Doe Run Lead Company, the Bonne Terre Farming and Cattle Company, and the Mine La Motte Cor­poration.

The St. Joe Minerals Corporation collection represents over one hundred years of mining in the Old Lead Belt by the St. Joseph Lead Company and the other mining firms it ul­timately ab­sorbed.  The collection was loaned for microfilming from records in storage at the headquarters of the Southeast Missouri Mining and Milling Division at Viburnum, Missouri.

St. Joe's forerunner, the St. Joseph Lead Company, was organized in New York in 1864.  The company purchased the nine hundred acre La Grave tract in the “bonne terre” area of the Old Lead Belt, where shallow mining had been carried on for years.  The com­pany struggled to meet its ex­penses until 1869, when the introduction of the diamond drill led to the discovery of rich lead de­posits deep underground and opened the way to deep mining and the rapid develop­ment of the area.  In spite of falling prices for lead, expansion continued in the 1870s under the supervi­sion of Charles B. Parsons at Bonne Terre.  A new mill was con­structed in 1883 after the original structure burned to the ground, leaving the company with a new, well-designed plant at the be­ginning of its most productive period in the Bonne Terre and Flat River areas.  The Desloge Min­ing Company mill burned in 1886, after which the company was sold to the St. Jo­seph Lead Company.  St. Joe also bought out many other small mining firms after 1900, making it the larg­est operator and em­ployer in the Old Lead Belt.  The collection contains materials from the St. Joseph Lead Company as well as some of the firms that it absorbed.  The most complete records are those of the St. Jo­seph Lead Company, which include cash books, journals, ledgers, and item­ized accounts of oper­ating expenses.  There are records of the Doe Run Company, which was or­ganized in 1886 by trustees of the St. Joseph Lead Company.  St. Joe eventually acquired the Doe Run Company in 1936 after a period of litigation brought by some of the Doe Run stock­holders.  The details of controversy are contained in the minutes of meetings of the stockholders and direc­tors of the com­pany.

Missouri statutes enacted in 1890 and 1891 prohibited mining companies from owning more land than absolutely necessary for mining operations, and from transacting business not speci­fied in the state charter.  In response to these laws, the St. Joseph Lead Company organ­ized the Bonne Terre Farming and Cattle Company in 1891.  St. Joe turned over all of its sur­face op­era­tions to the company, including land sales and rentals, house rentals, company   stores, and cattle operations.  The Bonne Terre Farming and Cattle Company continued to administer all of St. Joe’s surface business until 1974, when it was dissolved after St. Joe moved its headquarters and operations to Viburnum.  Bonne Terre Farming and Cattle Company records in the collec­tion in­clude journals, cash books, ledgers, and the min­utes of meetings of the directors, which span the life of the com­pany.  Other mining records from firms absorbed by St. Joe include Fed­eral Lead Company payroll ledgers, a minute book of the Pendleton Lead Company, and minutes of the meetings of the direc­tors of the Mine La Motte Corporation.  There is also an illustrated re­port on the Sweetwater Mining Company at Mine La Motte, written in 1926 before its pur­chase by the St. Joseph Lead Company.

 

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