WEIGHT OF THE WORLD: MUSEUM CELEBRATES LEAD PRODUCTION IN MISSOURI

PARK HILLS -- The weightiest part of Missouri's history is here.

This is just about the geographical center of a 15-by-5-mile area once and still known as the old lead belt. It's a belt Missouri should wear with pride, said Art Hebrank, former state geologist with the Department of Natural Resources.

About 80 percent of all the lead produced in the world comes from Missouri, he said.

"It's not like we're just important," said Hebrank, director of the Missouri Mines State Historic Site. "We're the whole show."

That's why in 1980, the DNR approved turning Federal Mill No. 3 and the 25 acres it sits on into a historic site.

The decision, despite four years of public meetings, was already scripted much earlier, Hebrank said. When St. Joe Minerals Corp. donated the mine and mill's 8,500 acres of land and facilities to the state in 1975, the DNR already was working from a plan listing thematic elements of Missouri history worth preserving.

Hebrank points to the Frank Valle house in Ste. Genevieve as an example. The DNR decided early French colonialism was important to Missouri's history, he said, so the Valle house represents more than just its owner. It is a symbol of French settlement, he said. In the state's mining history, perhaps Federal Mill No. 3 is more actual than symbolic. Built in 1906, it was immediately the largest lead mill by size with its 26 buildings. But after it was sold to St. Joe Minerals Corp. in 1923, production improved to 14,000 tons of ore a day, which was best in the world, Hebrank said.

At its peak in the mid-1900s, over 4,000 people were employed by the mill. They made better-than-average wages, and despite mining's dangerous reputation, no one ended his life underground.

"The mill averaged two deaths a year for a 90-year period," Hebrank said. "This is going only by coroner inquests. There would be no deaths if you considered every one of them died in the hospital."

Early on in the mine's history, the level of labor was intense. Each man had to shovel 21 tons of rock into one-ton ore cars today, or he didn't have a job tomorrow, Hebrank said. He recalled one man who could load 42 cars in one day. "When he went through the gate house to pick up his pay, the boss told him it was a sinful amount of money for any one man to make," Hebrank said. "That was probably because it was more than what the boss made." Work was made a bit easier for the lead miners by the St. Joe shovel. Built in 1922, it would extend its shovel into a pile of rocks, then the shovel would travel over the head of the operator dumping the load into a 2.7-ton ore car. The shovels dramatically altered work in the mines, allowing one man in an eight-hour shift to load 100 ore cars, Hebrank said.

Only 52 St. Joe shovels were made, and they were used until the mill shut down in 1972.

"It was total dinosaur as a machine by 1972, but it worked so efficiently they couldn't build anything to replace it," Hebrank said. One of the shovels is on display at the historic site, which has been open to the public since 1988. Along with the shovel, a 15-ton train engine that ran from a 275-volt line like a trolley and a little red vehicle called a "speeder" are some of the mine machinery for show at the site.

"The speeder was for the elite: mine captains, foremen, electricians and surveyors," Hebrank said. "It would travel up to 15 miles per hour, which is faster than you'd want to go in a mine." All the displays are in part of the old powerhouse. Besides the mine machines, there are interpretive displays on mining and lead, a collection of rare minerals, and a shower area converted into a theater where an old 12-minute mining industry film is screened.

Some of the miner's lockers and showers are still intact. Cartoon signs warning of athlete's foot have been left in place on the yellow tile entries to the showers. Of more real value are the minerals, collected mostly by one of the mine's early owners, Fayette Graves. As an owner of the mining company, he gathered his collection from both local and international specimens. The minerals became the wealth of St. Joseph Lead Co., a subsidiary of St. Joe Minerals, in 1912, when it bought out Federal Mill No. 3. The values of the minerals vary.

"I can't tell you what it's exactly worth, but it would pay for a brand new car," he said, pointing out one sample. Some items are only priceless in a nostalgic sense. A display of recent acquisitions shows a gold 50-year service medallion for a Farmington man. On the back an inscription says he started with the company as a water boy in 1895. Pieces of mine history like the medallion are brought in now and then by miners or their relatives, Hebrank said. They enjoy returning to see them on display, he said.

Hebrank, who worked in mines as a teen-ager, has his own collections. Part of his roughly 12,000 miners hats will make it to a display some day, he said. The 750-foot mine shafts and 300 miles of underground railroad lines won't be seen. The tunnels are filled with water now, Hebrank said.

"The whole time they were mining, they were pumping thousands of gallons of water out of there just to work," he said.

With the 15 remaining mill buildings, Hebrank has enough to care for above the ground. He figures he has completed about one-third of the job. It will be 10 or more years before he can use more of the artifacts and space that he has now, he said. As he walked around one of the buildings that housed rock crushers, he stopped to contemplate an unusual old bolt. Then he kicked it across the concrete floor.

"I don't know what to do with most of this stuff," he said.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: The Missouri Mines Historical Site.

WHERE: Near Park Hills off State Highway 32.

WHEN: Open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. On Sundays, noon to 6 p.m.

COSTS: Adults, $2; Children 6-12, $1.25.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Call 431-6226.