The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, often shortened to Rio Grande, D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a 3 ft narrow-gauge line running south from Denver, Colorado, in 1870. It served mainly as a transcontinental bridge line between Denver and Salt Lake City, Utah. The Rio Grande was also a major origin of coal and mineral traffic.
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.
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 2,660 as of the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Washington County.
The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, established in 1833, and sometimes referred to as the Lake Shore, was a major part of the New York Central Railroad's Water Level Route from Buffalo, New York, to Chicago, Illinois, primarily along the south shore of Lake Erie and across northern Indiana. The line's trackage remains a major rail transportation corridor used by Amtrak passenger trains and several freight lines; in 1998, its ownership was split at Cleveland, Ohio, between CSX Transportation to the east and Norfolk Southern Railway in the west.
The Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway was a railway company that operated in the U.S. states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. It began as the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, chartered in Nashville on December 11, 1845, built to 5 ft gauge and was the first railway to operate in the state of Tennessee. By the turn of the twentieth century, the NC&StL grew into one of the most important railway systems in the southern United States.
The Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railway (CL&N) was a local passenger and freight-carrying railroad in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio, connecting Cincinnati to Dayton via Lebanon. It was built in the late 19th century to give the town of Lebanon and Warren County better transportation facilities. The railroad was locally known as the "Highland Route", since it followed the ridge between the Little and Great Miami rivers, and was the only line not affected by floods such as the Great Dayton Flood of 1913.
The Maine Central Railroad was a U. S. class 1 railroad in central and southern Maine. It was chartered in 1856 and began operations in 1862. By 1884, Maine Central was the longest railroad in New England. Maine Central had expanded to 1,358 miles (2,185 km) when the United States Railroad Administration assumed control in 1917. The main line extended from South Portland, Maine, east to the Canada–United States border with New Brunswick, and a Mountain Division extended west from Portland to St. Johnsbury, Vermont, and north into Quebec. The main line was double track from South Portland to Royal Junction, where it split into a "lower road" through Brunswick and Augusta and a "back road" through Lewiston, which converged at Waterville into single track to Bangor and points east. Branch lines served the industrial center of Rumford, a resort hotel on Moosehead Lake and coastal communities from Bath to Eastport.
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.
The Mobile and Ohio Railroad was a railroad in the Southern U.S. The M&O was chartered in January and February 1848 by the states of Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee. It was planned to span the distance between the seaport of Mobile, Alabama and the Ohio River near Cairo, Illinois. On September 13, 1940, it was merged with the Gulf, Mobile and Northern Railroad to form the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad.
The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (OR&N) was a rail and steamboat transport company that operated a rail network of 1,143 miles (1,839 km) running east from Portland, Oregon, United States, to northeastern Oregon, northeastern Washington, and northern Idaho. It operated from 1896 as a consolidation of several smaller railroads.
The Cincinnati District is a railroad line owned by the Norfolk Southern Railway and operated by Cincinnati Eastern Railroad in the U.S. state of Ohio. The line runs from Cincinnati, Ohio, southeast to Portsmouth, Ohio, along a former Norfolk and Western Railway line. Its southeast end is at the Columbus District near Portsmouth, while its northwest end is in Mariemont, Ohio, where it meets the Indiana and Ohio Railway's Midland Subdivision and Norfolk Southern's Dayton District.
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.
The Mississippi Valley and Western Railway (MV&W) was the name of three different shortline railroads which operated in the U.S. states of Iowa and Missouri. The first company was formed on January 25, 1871, and existed for just five days before merging with a much larger road. On January 20, 1873, two other railroads merged with the MV&W to create a second consolidated company. This last railroad went bankrupt on August 7, 1874, having constructed only a minimal amount of track. The bankrupt firm was sold to the St. Louis, Keokuk and North Western Railway.
The North Missouri Railroad was a railway company that operated in the states of Missouri and Iowa in the mid-19th century. Incorporated in 1851, at its peak it owned or leased nearly 500 miles (800 km) of track. It was reorganized as the St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern Railway, a forerunner of the Wabash Railroad, in 1872.
