Bonne Terre

Beneath the town the plaque describes, the diggings it names now lie under water. The St. Joe Lead Company began building the Bonne Terre Mine in 1864, under the town itself, and worked it until 1962. After it closed, the galleries gradually filled with rain and spring water. The flooded caverns drew Jacques Cousteau's Calypso crew in 1983, and their exploration launched the mine's reputation as a dive site. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, the mine now offers tours on the surface, below ground and underwater.

What the plaque says

Bonne Terre The city of Bonne Terre, named for the lead-bearing "good earth" of the area, lies in the oldest and largest mining district of Missouri, leading lead producing state in the U. S. since 1908. Missouri's lead is the base of its first permanent settlement and major industry. Lead, long used by the Indians and known to French gold and silver seekers of the early 1700's, was not seriously mined until failure of John Law's "Mississippi Scheme" made it apparent that there was no gold or silver in the area. After the "Mississippi Bubble" of hoped for riches burst, 1720, an employee of the French Company of the Indies, Philip Renault, opened lead diggings in this Lead Belt region of Missouri. Jean Baptiste Pratte operated the first lead diggings here at Bonne Terre in the late 1790's. In 1864, the New York chartered St. Joseph Lead Company bought the 946- acre Pratte lead diggings, then owned by Anthony La Grave, for $75,000. With early use of the diamond drill in prospecting and with the rich deposits of lead, the company has become the nation's top lead producer. (See other side) Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1955 Bonne Terre (Continued from other side) Bonne Terre is one of the many closely spaced St. Francois County mining towns in the largest lead district in the U. S. Long a mining settlement, the town was laid out by the St. Joseph Lead Co., 1880. Among the other towns in the area are Desloge, laid out by Firmin Desloge, Lead Belt pioneer, 1877, and Flat River, the scene of a mining boom in the 1890's, laid out, 1913. The first Americans in this area settled Spanish land grants on nearby Big River, 1794. Murphy's Settlement, now Farmington, was made to the south, 1801. There Sarah Barton Murphy started the first Sunday School west of the Mississippi about 1807. When St. Francois County was organized, 1821, Farmington became the county seat. Much of St. Francois County lies in the geologic center of the Ozarks, oldest of U.S. mountain regions. The enormous chat piles attest the county's mineral wealth where the galena (lead sulfide) is mined in massive man-made caverns from dolomite deposits measuring up to 600 feet. In southwest St. Francois County is Iron Mountain, scene of a great iron mining boom of the mid-1800's. Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1955

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Missouri Mines State Historic Site — 6.2 mi
  Federal Mill No. 3 at Park Hills, the biggest lead mine and mill complex of the Old Lead Belt under St. Joseph Lead, with its 1906 powerhouse now a museum of mining machines and minerals.
• Washington State Park — 13 mi
  Big River hills with the largest group of petroglyphs found in Missouri and the stonework of Company 1743, an African American Civilian Conservation Corps company that named its camp for a carved thunderbird.
• Hawn State Park — 18 mi
  A schoolteacher's bequest of sandstone canyons, shortleaf pine and clear sandy creeks west of Ste. Genevieve, with one of the state's best backpacking trails.
• Elephant Rocks State Park — 20 mi
  A train of rounded granite boulders 1.5 billion years old near Graniteville, weathered in place into a tor, beside the quarry that faced the Eads Bridge piers and paved the St. Louis levee.

More markers nearby

• Potosi — 13 mi
• Fort Davidson — 21 mi
• Jefferson County — 21 mi