The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1909-09-09

3 county mas received hN It's snare bl
from the very corner stone Of its u
When old man Dietrich Baurnanr
put his ear to drill hole in Tn,
Flat River country along about the
time Judge VIM. II. Taylor was try.
ing to pump dry an underground
river in what is now National No.
/, and observed that he could hear
the dollars a-clinkin'," he was mere.
! ly stating IA personal belief, but the
( subsequent ten or fifteen years have
! turned his opinion into an absolute
fact, and in addition have added
some golden trimmings to his most
| r0s"atc dreams. The truth Is that
| the venerable old Dutchman heard
not dollars a-clinkin, but the soft
and subdued rustic Of yellow-b backed
currency. Dollars take up too much
room and IRE bothcrsOmc. Besides
who wants to have To take care of
seventy millions i'm dollars.
TIP to the end of the last fiscal
year. June 30, 1909, just about SO
900 600 worth of lead concentrates
had been produced from disseminated
ore In the triangular district lying
between Bonnie Trrrc, lockwood
aud Flat River. This includes con-
centratrs to the value of not more
than II 900, 600 produced from the
Doe Run mines between the years
1858 and 1890,
In the production Of this $40 OOO,-
900, there were mined approximate
ly 300 acres. In other words, the
total area of the underground work
ings of the five companies now OPP
Grating would cover n surface equiv
alent to 800 acres. This includes all
the underground workings in the
county, whether abandoned or Mt
present producing So that the av-
erage for the district il in excess Of
500 900 worth OF lead concentrates
per acre.
Two Millions on Top OF Ground
Now in addition to these seventy
millions of dollars worth of lead
taken from the limestone of st
Francois county, there Ia a further
credit to be made of$l 1884 900, which
represents the value Of $3.50 tors
OF surface ore taken from Mine IA
Gebore, Mine n Layne, Mine Man
teo, Mine LaPlatte, Mine Joe,
and other "diggings," located in st.
Francois county. 1t was this ore,
and the ores from old Mine Lamotte
aud Mine Breton near Potosi,
which helped to found the fortunes
OF the Vale and Menard families
and added considerably to the in
come Of Monsieur Ferdinand RO-
zier, ST., then the prominent mcr-
chant Of ale vieuX village de Ste.
Genevieve." And perhaps old Louis
Bolduc, another merchant of lie
vieux village, who used to measure
his silver money in half bushel
basket, extracted his share of the
profits from the ores brought in by
pack horse, or in charrettes, the
quaint old French carts, which
creaked their way across the hills
from the lead diggings to Ste. Gene
We've, then the metropolis of the
Mississippi Valley.
Pioneer Work OF Parsons.
But the history of the great lead
deposits Of the county, which now
are yielding close to 0,000, 600 year
ly, did not begin until 1864, when the
st. Joe Lead Company discovered
disseminated ore. This company
brought the diamond drill into the
field In 1869 and thus made possible
the location of the great bodies of
mineralized limestone which have
placed Missouri first among lead
producing States, Idaho having been
passed by approximately $1,000, 200
in 1907. or the sl4, 699, $50 worth Of