Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/335

 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 275 Crystal City Railroad, extending from the works to Silica on the Iron Mountain, a distance of three and a half miles. The railroad was operated until the building of the Frisco south from St. Louis to ^Memphis. The plant later came imder the control of the Pittsburg Plate Glass Company, who now own and operate it. About 2,000 people are em- ployed hy the company and the product of the plant amounts to a large sum each year. The present town is supported almoist exclu- sively by the Company. There is a good public school and several business establish- ments, and one church building. This church building was erected by the Company and stands in the midst of about three acres of very lieai^tiful. well kept grounds. It was first turned over to the Episcopalians but is now free for the services of all denominations. The population of Crystal City is about 1,200. Herculaneum A town in Jefferson county tliirty miles south of St. Louis. It was at one time one of the most important settlements in the west. The land on which the town stands was pur- chased in 1808 by Samuel Hammond and Moses Lawson, who laid it out in town lots and began the sale of the lots. The advantage of the situation of the town was twofold. In the first place it was near the lead region and in the second place it was situated on bluffs over- looking the Jlississippi river, on which it was possible to erect shot towers for the manu- facture of shot at a very little cost; in fact, no tower was really necessary, as the melted lead could be dropped from the top of the bluff into the water below. The first estab- lishment for making shot was erected at the mouth of Joachim creek by John INI. ^Macklot of St. Louis. Other shot towers were erected within a short time and considerable quanti- ties of lead and shot were manufactured. Long says (p. 104) that there were three shot factories at Herculaneum in 1819, all of them built on the summits of perpendicular precipices, by which means the erecting of high towers has been avoided. Flagg ("Far West," p. 93) gives this bit of description : " In a few moments the forest opened unexpectedly before me and at my feet rolled on the turbid floods of the Missis- sippi, beyond which went up the towering cliff's of limestone to the height of more than a hundred feet from the water's edge, were the cliff's of Herculaneum ivitli their shot towers." When Jeff'erson covmty was organized in 1818 Herculaneum was made the countj^ seat and continued to grow and prosper imtil the lead hich had Ijeeu transported to Hercula- neum for shipments on the river began to be sent from two other shipping points known as Sehna and Rush Tojwer. They aff'orded some- what better facilities for shipping than Her- culaneum and the town began to decline. The county scat was taken away in 1836 and re- moved to ^louticello, afterward called Hills- boro. The town lo.st a great deal of its im- portance until the establishment of plants for the smelting of lead. When the Missis- sippi River & Bonne Terre Railway was con- structed a large smelting plant was built on the river at Herculaneum and great quanti- ties of lead ore were brought from the mines to be smelted in this plant. It is still one of the important lead manufacturing towns in the state. The town is supported almost en- tirely by the lead company. It has a bank called the Bank of Herculaneum, with a capi- tal of ^10,000; a small public school, two churches, and half a dozen business estab- lishments, and its population is about 800. The Eerculatieinit Hustler is a weekly news- paper and is Republican in politics. There is still standing the chimn*e} -of the old house where Governor Thomas C. Fletcher was born, and also the remains of one of the fir.st shot towers f about 1808).