Desloge Consolidated Lead Company

Desloge Consolidated Lead Company is a historically significant Missouri lead mining company owned by a great industrialist baron family of the 19th and 20th centuries in the new American Frontier - starting just after the Louisiana Purchase, in the Southeast Missouri Lead District.

History

The Desloge Consolidated Lead Company was organized in 1888 in Missouri from the Desloge family businesses in lead and mercantile in Missouri dating from 1824, and including the Missouri Lead Mining and Smelting Company in 1874 and the Desloge Lead Company in 1876. Firmin Rene Desloge built his own then modern smelting furnace circa 1824 as an extension of his Potosi, Missouri mercantile business. His son, Firmin V. Desloge ^[1] expanded mining operations and expanded management to Bonne Terre,^[2] Missouri; a charter was requested and granted to the Missouri Lead and Smelting Company on June 5, 1874. The corporate name was later changed to “The Desloge Lead Company” on February 21, 1876. Three shafts were sunk during 1876 and 1877 and a new mill was built. The interests of this corporation were consolidated with those of the St. Joseph Lead Company in 1887 and were a part of the holdings of what is probably the greatest lead mining and smelting company in the world. A fire in March 1886 destroyed the concentrating mill plant and did great damage to the entire surface plant of the Desloge Lead Company. Rather than rebuild, the Desloge Lead Company was sold to St. Joe. In 1887, the land was cleared and company houses for his staff were constructed just west of the present day railroad tracks. This location became known as Deslogetown, present day Desloge, Missouri.

Firmin Rene Desloge came to the new Louisiana Purchase territory of Missouri in 1823 as a partner in the mercantile business with his uncle, Ferdinand Rozier.^[3] Ferdinand Rozier had come to America in partnership with John James Audubon in 1806; the partnership having been funded by Firmin Desloge's grandfather, Claude Rozier.^[4] The Desloge Mercantile business in Missouri consisted of fur trading, hardware, clothing, lead smelting and ore trading and distillery.

In 1893, there opened a new Desloge mine in St Francois County. The mill had the capacity of 500 tons of lead per day.^[5][6] In Bonne Terre, Firmin Desloge expanded mining operations and expanded management to include key family members and relatives. Just north of St. Joe Lead Company property in Bonne Terre was a tract of land originally granted to Jean Bte. Pratte, designated as U. S. Survey No. 3099.^[7] It was this tract of land that attracted the interest of the Desloge family. As a merchant in Potosi, Firmin Desloge had traded and smelted lead ore since 1820s.

Firmin Desloge II purchased land adjacent to St. Joseph Lead Company and built a smelting plant for his new corporation Desloge Lead Company. He expanded lead mining operations by buying the Bogy Lead Mine Company and the St. Francois Mining Company and organized a new company called Desloge Consolidated Lead Company with partners.

The "Old Lead Belt," located in the eastern Ozark Mountains helped Missouri achieve its status as the premier lead mining area of the world, and the Desloge lead mining enterprises initiated by Firmin Rene Desloge from the 1820s played a major part in this achievement.

The Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act

The Revenue Act or Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894 reduced the United States tariff rates and immediately threatened the entire southeast Missouri lead businesses. Firmin Desloge II, quick to use his knowledge of the industry and to apply his strong personality to protect his business, his industry and the State of Missouri went immediately to Washington, DC to forcefully edify congress of the harsh impacts of the Revenue Act. Even facing financial ruin because of the low price of lead, and in spite of the wealth of the company banks would not lead money to his, Firmin Desloge II - in one of the great business and humanitarian moves - ingeniously came up with his own funds to continue operations, fire none of the employees, did not sell any of his pig lead but rather stockpiled it for later sale until the Act was repealed.^[8]

Real estate

While endeavoring in lead production for over one hundred years, the reality behind the lead business was in fact a large and mighty real estate enterprise. The acquisitions of lands and rights were made up of hundreds of land leases, purchases, options, rights of refusals, mineral rights, chattel mortgages, deed transfers, quit-claims, trust deeds, judgment sales, sheriff’s sales, bankruptcy sales, grants, bonds, notes, and various claims from area miners all covering thousands of acres and hundreds of parcels of land, a narrow gauge railroad requiring land acquisitions, easements and rights of way also was constructed, as well as major construction was required for building mills, constructing smelting furnaces, power stations and sinking mine shafts.^[9] The Desloge family as a result became one of the great industrialist families of Missouri history. But it all started with one immigrant from France behind the counter of his humble store counter in Potosi.

Railroads

Firmin Desloge II also built the first railroads to penetrate the disseminated lead field of St. Francois County, Missouri to benefit the needs of the Desloge and St. Joe mines: The Desloge Railway, The Mississippi River and Bonne Terre Rail Road^[10] and then The Valley Railroad. Firmin Desloge II was also involved with the development of the Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad (aka, Iron Mountain Railroad) from St. Louis, Missouri to Texarkana, Arkansas. The St. Joseph Lead Company built a narrow gauge railroad thirteen and one-half miles long, reaching from the mines to Summit in Washington County, a point on the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad.^[11] The cost was divided between the two companies, the St. Joe paying two-thirds and the Desloge Company paying one-third. The Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad (Iron Mountain Railroad) from St. Louis, Missouri to Texarkana, Arkansas was robbed twice; once by the James-Younger Gang at Gad's Hill and once by the Dalton Gang.

A family story

In an account from one of Firmin Desloge II’s friends and business colleagues of that time, Harry Cantwell, Sr we can get a sense of Firmin Desloge’s trust and confidence in his own judgment as well as his wildcatting spirit. H. J. Cantwell III of St. Louis, grandson of Harry J. Cantwell, founder of the area known as Cantwell, recounted the family story. "They say that grandfather and Desloge (Firmin Desloge) were riding in a surrey one day trying to decide where to sink a shaft. Desloge spit off one side of the surrey and said there was where they would sink the shaft. Grandfather didn't agree with the location of the spit and split with Desloge to form his own company," Cantwell said. Almost simultaneously in 1889, Firmin Desloge commenced operation on the old Mine A Joe tract.”^[12] True to Desloge’s understanding of the geology, his shaft struck the main vein and deposits as that of those which he had been working at Bonne Terre before the fire. The Desloge Consolidated Lead Co., while in operation, never dismissed one of its old employees because of age or disability.^[13]

Sale to the St. Joseph Lead Company

The massive Desloge plant ran under his operation until 1929 when it was sold to the St. Joe Lead Company for $18,000,000.^[14][15] In 2010 dollars, this is equal to approximately $360,000,000. “With the absorption of the Desloge concern by the St. Joseph Lead Company, one of the oldest mining companies of the district goes out of existence as a company.” ^[16]

The Desloge Consolidated Lead Company, and specifically Firmin Rene Desloge and Firmin Desloge, II were noted "as pioneers that did not read history, they made it" and noted as "the most distinguished of American mining engineers".^[17]

The Firmin Desloge Hospital

Some of the proceeds from the wealth generated by the sale of Desloge Consolidated Lead Company were used as a memorial gift to build Firmin Desloge Hospital^[18][19] in St. Louis, Missouri, a hospital principally designed to serve the poor.

The modern Desloge Consolidated Lead Company

A Modern Desloge Consolidated Lead Company was formed in 2004 as an investment holding company by a Desloge family descendant.^[20]

References

1. ^ Stevens, Walter B. St. Louis The Fourth City 1764-1911. 2 vols. St. Louis-Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1909 and 1911.
2. ^ http://www.bonneterre.net/history.htm
3. ^ Huger, Lucie Furstenberg. The Desloge Family in America. St. Louis: Nordman Printing Co., 1959.
4. ^ Arthur, Stanley Clisy. Audubon: An Intimate Life of the American Woodsman, 1937.
5. ^ Ingalls, Waiter Renton. Lead and Zinc in the United States. Hill Publishing Company, London, England, 1908
6. ^ HISTORY OF THE LEAD BELT OF ST. FRANCOIS COUNTY MISSOURI By A. J. Norwine (1924)
7. ^ History of St. Joe Lead Company http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mostfran/mine_history/stjoe_history.htm
8. ^ Globe-Democrat, Editorial, November 18, 1908.
9. ^ The Desloge Chronicles, Christopher D. Desloge, compilation of Desloge letters and history, 2010
10. ^ Sullivan, John J., History of St. Joe and Desloge Railway and Missouri River and Bonne Terre Railroad, handwritten, Railroads Collection, Desloge Railway, Missouri Historical Society archives
11. ^ Missouri Short Line Railroad
12. ^ http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mostfran/towns/cantwell_harry.htm
13. ^ http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/MOSTFRAN/2002-09/1033360033
14. ^ Desloge Consolidated Lead Company records at Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, MO
15. ^ May 31, 1929 The Lead Belt News
16. ^ Ibid.
17. ^ http://www.scribd.com/doc/15568426/Thomas-A-Rickards-A-History-of-American-Mining
18. ^ http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1893&dat=19300801&id=R5MfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=I9QEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6897,1130518
19. ^ http://www.slu.edu/sluhistory/desloge.html
20. ^ Secretary of State, State of Missouri, Corporations Division

The Desloge Family Collection at Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, MO

Desloge Consolidated Lead Company records at Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, MO

The Rozier Collection at Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, MO

Southeast Missouri Mining and Milling. Doe Run Company. 2004.

Thomas A. Rickards. A History of American Mining, Maple Press Co., New York, 1937

Potosi (Missouri) Historical Society

External links

• http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mostfran/mine_history/leadbelt_history.html
• http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mostfran/mine_history/stjoe_desloge_lead.htm