St. Francois County is a county in the Lead Belt region in the U.S. state of Missouri. At the 2020 census, the population was 66,922. The largest city and county seat is Farmington. The county was officially organized on December 19, 1821. It was named after the St. Francis River. The origin of the river's name is unclear. It may refer to St. Francis of Assisi. Another possibility is that Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit who explored the region in 1673, named the river for the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier; Marquette had spent some time at the mission of St. François Xavier before his voyage and, as a Jesuit, was unlikely to have given the river a name honoring the Franciscans.
Fredericktown is a city in and the county seat of Madison County, Missouri, United States, in the northeastern foothills of the St. Francois Mountains. The population was 4,429 at the 2020 census, up from 3,985 in 2010. The city is surrounded on three sides by the easternmost parcel of the Mark Twain National Forest.
Bonne Terre is a city in St. Francois County, Missouri, United States with a population of 6,864 at the 2010 census. Situated in the Southeast Missouri Lead District, lead mining shaped the history and character of the area from the earliest French settlers in the 1720s until today, even though Bonne Terre Mine established by St. Joseph lead mining company in 1864 closed in 1962. Mine tailing piles eroded, and contaminated the area as dust, posing residential hazards or were washed into the Big River. Only in 1992, the Bonne Terre Mine Tailings Site was listed as a Superfund site; as of 2022 remediation is still ongoing.
Desloge is a city in St. Francois County, Missouri, United States. The population was 5,054 as of the 2010 census.
Potosi is a city in Washington County, Missouri, United States. Potosi is seventy-two miles southwest of St. Louis. The population was 2,538 as of the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Washington County.
The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropist Henry Shaw. Its herbarium, with more than 6.6 million specimens, is the second largest in North America, behind that of the New York Botanical Garden. The Index Herbariorum code assigned to the herbarium is MO and it is used when citing housed specimens.
Hurghada is a coastal city that serves as the largest city and capital of the Red Sea Governorate of Egypt. Hurghada has grown from a small fishing village to one of the largest resort destinations along the Red Sea coast, stretching close to 40 km.
The Big River is a tributary of the Meramec River in east-central Missouri. The river rises in western Iron County near the summit of Johnson Mountain just north of Missouri Route 32 and approximately 3.5 miles southeast of the community of Enough. It flows through Washington, Saint Francois, and Jefferson counties. It forms part of the boundary between Jefferson and Saint Francois counties and also part of the boundary between Jefferson and Washington counties. It empties into the Meramec River opposite Eureka where the Meramec forms the border between Jefferson and Saint Louis counties. The river flows through Washington State Park, St. Francois State Park, and the Lead Belt mining district. The elevation of the river at its source is approximately 1,300 feet (400 m) above sea level and at its mouth about 400 feet (120 m). The length of the river is approximately 145 miles (233 km), while the airline distance between source and mouth is about 56 miles (90 km). Its watershed area is 955 square miles (2,470 km2).
The Southeast Missouri Lead District, commonly called the Lead Belt, is a lead mining district in the southeastern part of Missouri. Counties in the Lead Belt include Saint Francois, Crawford, Dent, Iron, Madison, Reynolds, and Washington. This mining district is the most important and critical lead producer in the United States.
Cadet is an unincorporated community in Union Township in eastern Washington County, Missouri, United States. Cadet is located on Missouri Route 47 between Old Mines to the west and Bonne Terre to the southeast. The village is approximately 6 miles (10 km) northeast of Potosi.
SS Tahoe was a steamship that operated on Lake Tahoe at the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. Scuttled in 1940, the wreck presently lies in 400 feet (120 m) of water off Glenbrook, Nevada. The wreck was first visited in 2002 by a team from New Millennium Dive Expeditions (NMDE) in a record-setting high-altitude dive for Lake Tahoe. As a result of the work that NMDE did on the Tahoe site from 1999 up to their dives in 2002, Tahoe became the first maritime site in Nevada to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Maple Leaf is a United States National Historic Landmark in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. Maple Leaf, a side paddlewheel steamship, was first launched as a freight and passenger vessel from the Marine Railway Yard in Kingston, Upper Canada in 1851. The 181-foot (55 m) sidewheel paddle steamer measured 24.7-foot (7.5 m) at the beam.
Steve Lewis is an active cave and wreck diver. Born in Peckham, New Cross London, he currently resides in Muskoka, Ontario Canada.
St. Joe Minerals Corporation was an American mining company. It was the United States largest producer of lead and zinc at the time of its merger with Fluor Corporation in 1981. The St. Joseph Lead Company was founded on March 25, 1864, by Lyman W. Gilbert, John E. Wylie, Edmund I. Wade, Wilmot Williams, James L. Dunham and James L. Hathaway in New York City.
Desloge Consolidated Lead Company was a lead mining company in the Southeast Missouri Lead District that was operated by the Desloge family in the 19th and early 20th century. The Desloge lead operations in the "Old Lead Belt", in the eastern Ozark Mountains, helped Missouri become the world's premier lead mining area.
Firmin Vincent Desloge II was an American industrialist lead mining pioneer in the disseminated lead fields of the Southeast Missouri Lead District and member of the Desloge family in America.
The Desloge family, centered mostly in Missouri and especially at St. Louis, rose to wealth through international commerce, sugar refining, oil drilling, fur trading, mineral mining, saw milling, manufacturing, railroads, real estate, and riverboats. The family has funded hospitals and donated large tracts of land for public parks and conservation.
Bonne Terre Depot, also known as the Mississippi River and Bonne Terre Railway Depot, is a historic train station located at Bonne Terre, St. Francois County, Missouri. It was built in 1909 by the Mississippi River and Bonne Terre Railway, and is a 2 1/2-story, Queen Anne / Stick style frame building on an ashlar foundation. It has a hipped roof with dormers and features a round, conical-roofed tower and encircling verandah with bell-cast profile. The building has been renovated as a bed and breakfast inn.
St. Joe Lead Company Administration Building, also known as the St. Joe Company Offices, Central Office Building, is a historic office building located at Bonne Terre, St. Francois County, Missouri. It was built in 1909 by the St. Joe Lead Company, and is a 2+1⁄2-story, H-shaped, Gothic Revival style brick building with granite trim. It features pointed arched entrances, bay windows and bi-chromatic decoration.
The Mississippi River & Bonne Terre Railway was a single-track standard-gauge steam railroad that was located in southeastern Missouri and began service in 1892. It extended from Riverside in a general southwesterly direction to the lead-mining field in St. Francois County. The main stem, from Riverside to Doe Run, was 46.492 miles (74.822 km) long. Eight short branch lines had a total trackage of 17.418 miles (28.032 km). Sidings and spurs aggregated 30.664 miles (49.349 km), and all tracks owned 94.574 miles (152.202 km).
