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. The company acquired a lead mine at Bonne Terre, Missouri. The mine had numerous problems including Price's Raid by Confederate States Army General Sterling Price. However under first president J. Wyman Jones and new mine manager Charles B. Parsons began using new

diamond drilling Exploration diamond drilling is used in the mining industry to probe the contents of known ore deposits and potential sites. By withdrawing a small diameter core of rock from the orebody, geologists can analyze the core by chemical assay and cond ...

techniques the business prospered. It nearly went bankrupt February 26, 1883 when a fire destroyed the milling operations. The success of the company prompted many competitors in southeast Missouri including the Doe Run Company and

Desloge Consolidated Lead Company 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 Ozar ...

which were absorbed by St. Joe.

Firmin V. Desloge Firmin Vincent Desloge II (August 30, 1843 – December 18, 1929) 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. Life In ...

, patriarch 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 riv ...

, remained on the board of directors as well as many of his descendants well into the late 20th Century. By 1923 the company had 250 miles of underground railroad running under

Flat River, Missouri Park Hills is a city in St. Francois County, Missouri, United States. The population was 8,587 at the 2020 census. History The city was formed in an unusual four-way merger that took place in January 1994, in which the cities of Flat River, Elv ...

, Leadwood, Missouri, Desloge, Missouri, Rivermines, Missouri and Elvins, Missouri. In 1925 it expanded operations to lead, zinc and silver mining in South America including the Aguilar mine in Argentina near the

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

border. Its expansion into the zinc operations particularly in the northeastern United States lead it to Northern Ore Company in New York and the New Jersey Zinc Company in New Jersey in 1943. In the 1940s it expanded its Missouri Lead Belt operations to

Indian Creek, Missouri Indian Creek is an unincorporated community in northeastern Monroe County, in the U.S. state of Missouri. The community is located on the banks of Indian Creek and along U.S. Route 24 U.S. Route 24 (US 24) is one of the original United Stat ...

, Viburnum, Missouri, Meremec, Missouri and

Fletcher, Missouri Fletcher is an unincorporated community in western Jefferson County, Missouri, United States. The community lies on Calico Creek approximately one-half mile east of the Jefferson-Washington county line. It is located approximately ten miles wes ...

. Its domination of the Southeast Missouri Lead District gave it control of nearly 70 percent of the United States lead production As the company also branched into the coal industry acquiring A.T. Massey in 1974 it was renamed St. Joe Mineral. In 1981 with metal prices running high Fluor Corporation outbid

Seagrams The Seagram Company Ltd. (which traded as Seagram's) was a Canadian multinational conglomerate formerly headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Originally a distiller of Canadian whisky based in Waterloo, Ontario, it was once (in the 1990s) the lar ...

to acquire the company. Shortly after the acquisition metal prices collapsed. The Fluor Corporation would spin the components off with zinc going to the

Horsehead Corporation The Horsehead Holding Corporation, formerly The New Jersey Zinc Company, was an American producer of zinc and related materials based in Pittsburgh. The operations of the historic company are currently conducted as American Zinc Recycling. The ...

in 1987, lead to the Doe Run Company and coal to

Massey Energy Massey Energy Company was a coal extractor in the United States with substantial operations in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia. By revenue, it was the fourth largest producer of coal in the United States and the largest coal producer in Centr ...

. The

Bonne Terre Mine Bonne Terre Mine, also known as the St. Joseph Lead Mine at Bonne Terre, is a historic lead mine located at Bonne Terre, St. Francois County, Missouri. Bonne Terre Mine was built starting in 1864 by the St. Joe Lead Company, and is located bel ...

and St. Joe Lead Company Administration Building are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Joe Minerals Defunct companies based in Missouri Defunct mining companies of the United States Coal companies of the United States Zinc mining in the United States Lead mining companies 1864 establishments in New York (state) 1981 disestablishments in New York (state) Superfund sites in Missouri Non-renewable resource companies established in 1864 Non-renewable resource companies disestablished in 1981 Silver mining companies of the United States American companies disestablished in 1981