Information Sheet

 

 

R         Hill, Commodore Perry, 1901-1983.

125                  Collection, 1885-1982.

                                    101 folders, 3 volumes, and 91 photographs.

 

 

 

These are newspaper clippings, maps, miscellaneous items, and photographs pertain­ing to lead mining and related railroad development in the Old Lead Belt, principally of St. Francois and Madison counties in southeastern Missouri.  The material is arranged in topical and bio­graphical series.

 

The Hill collection is the result of a thirty-year avocational interest in the history of the Old Lead Belt.  Commodore Perry Hill, Jr., was a native of the area.  He was employed for many years by the St. Joseph Lead Company.  His interest in history began with research into his own geneal­ogy, but it soon grew to embrace the early history of the Mineral Area.  Around 1945, Hill was given an extensive collection of back issues of the Farmington News, which he found to be filled with items on the history of the area and its mining industries.  He began a collection of clippings, cutting out the items individually and then arranging them by topic.  He supplemented the clip­pings with information gleaned from county records and sec­ondary sources, and data from office manuals and equipment price lists of the mining compa­nies, which he also collected.  Hill was a virtual almanac of Lead Belt history, and was, in his later years, a frequent correspon­dent and ar­biter of historical details for area newspapers.  He died at Bonne Terre, Missouri, on 31 August 1983.

 

The Hill collection has five parts: topical files of newspaper clip­pings; biographical files of newspaper clippings; pamphlets and printed material; mining com­pany records; and photo­graphs.  The clipping files are the most extensive sections of the col­lection, especially for the years 1900-1935, although some clippings date to 1885.  The best-docu­mented subjects are: min­ing and min­ing firms; railroad de­velopment, particularly the Missis­sippi River & Bonne Terre Railroad and the Houck lines; industrial accidents and fa­talities; and the history of St. Francois County and its towns and vil­lages.  The biographical files in­clude obituaries, wedding an­nouncements, and notes on many residents of St. Francois County.

 

The printed material pertains almost entirely to the St. Joseph Lead Company and its sub­sidi­aries.  There are parts lists for Sullivan drills, St. Joe shovels, and Goodman locomo­tives, all of which were widely used in the Lead Belt.  There are also agreements between the mining and rail­road companies and operating locals of labor unions, office manuals, and rail­road rulebooks and timetables.

 

The photograph file consists of 91 black-and-white prints of mining scenes and equipment.  Many are original prints, and negatives accompany most.  Many are views made by Rob­ert Arnoldi of Flat River, who apparently made most of the well-known photographs of the area of turn-of-the-century vintage.  Only about a quarter are dated, but Hill provided identification for most of them.  There are views of underground and surface operations from several different mines and featuring different types of equipment.  Opera­tions of the Doe Run Lead Company, the Federal Lead Com­pany, and the St. Joseph Lead Company are represented in the photograph col­lection.

 

 

Shelf List for this collection
Folder and Photograph Shelf List for this collection
Index to Biographical File for this collection
Index cards for this collection
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