Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/423

 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 363 found to contain no great quantities of high grade ore; mining is still carried on at these points but the ore is of an inferior grade, the best ore having been practically exhausted. There are also quantities of ore in Lewis Mountain near Arcadia, in Buford Mountain, also in Iron county, and in Boden Mountain in the same county. Besides these, such places as the Shut-In, Riissell, Ackhurst and Big Bogy bauks of iron also contain considerable quantities of iron ore. Limonite ores in large quantities are found in Wayne, Bollinger and Stoddard counties; the ore, however, is not so concentrated and the expense of working it is greater there than in the case of the specular ore. In spite of this disadvantage thei-e is still going on a considerable amount of mining. The last twenty years has witnessed a re- markable development of that section of the state known as the Lead Belt. About 1880 it wa.s discovered that lead in large and paying quantities existed in what is known as the Flat River district. This discovery resulted in tiie opening of extensive mines first at Flat River then at DesLoge, Leadwood and Elvins. After the building of the Mississippi River & Bonne Terre railway to Bonne Terre, tlie necessity for providing transportation facil- ities for the products of the new mines re- sulted in the extension of this new railway through DesLoge and Flat River to Doe Run. The population of this Lead Belt increased very rapidly and in fact there is almost a continuous town from near Bonne Terre to Flat River. This large population rendered it almost imperative to constnict an inter- urban line which was built in the year 1906, principally by capitalists of Farmingtou, from the Iron Mountain railway at DeLassus through Farmington to Flat River. This road has given an impetus to the building up of the section Avhieh has been very marked. At the present time to a very much greater extent than formerly the lead belt is develop- ing a characteristic life. Once those who worked in the mines were also interested in farming and the country depended about equally on its mines and its farms. The great extension of mining interests in recent years, however, has changed this; agricultural in- terests have become relatively unimportant throughout most of the section and a greater number of the population are directly de- pendent ui^on the mines and smelters. This has resulted in the development of the charac- teristic life of mining communities ; the people are concentrated in the towns and these are all typical mining to^^s. Of course the mining of lead on a large scale such as it is now conducted, differs very widely from the old system of mining which required little or no capital. In the former method any man with sufficient energy and strength could engage with some success in the digging of ore for himself independent of all other persons. The organization of gi'cat companies, however, and the almost universal use of imjjroved machinery has made it prac- tically impossible for an.y one to engage in mining independent of those companies or associations which control large amounts of capital. Accordingly we find practically all the mining in the entire district carried on by a few large companies. It has been the policy of the mine owners in the district to concentrate the smelting of lead in one or two places. At the present time the great amount of smelting is carried on at Herculaneum. This point is a number of miles distant from any of the mines but the existence of the Mississippi & Bonne Terre