USA > Missouri > Greene County > Past and present of Greene County Missouri, early and recent history and genealogical records of many of the representative citizens, Volume I > Part 11
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Section at the Kelso Shaft.
Feet.
6. Soil. red clay, with imbedded clay nodules 2
5. Limestone, with chert, dark-colored, coarse. 5
4. Shale, variegated, reddish and greenish 3
3. Shale. compact. bluish, with occasional thin seams containing fossil plants 18
2. Shale. black, with crystals of selenite 4
I. Shale, black 3
The surrounding rock is a coarse bowlder conglomerate. The upper portions of the clay vary from greenish to reddish, but the great mass of the bed closely resembles, both in plasticity and chemical composition, that found
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GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
at Billings, in an adjacent county. Its freedom from mica and iron makes it a most promising variety for the manufacture of fire-brick and all kinds of pottery. The nodules of clay mentioned in the first two feet of the section are the mineral Halloysite, and seem to be peculiar to this locality, at least they have never been seen at any other point. They vary from the size of a nutmeg to masses several inches across. They are imbedded in an impure, ferruginous clay, resembling the Upper Burlington clay soon to be described, and when freshly broken, are delicately and beautifully colored from a rich salmon color through the various shades of red, pink, yellow, blue and green. These nodular masses seem to have almost completely lost their plasticity, and they are hard and brittle. It might be supposed that they are masses of the clay that have been baked by surface fires, but the finding of them at greater depths in other shafts precludes this idea. The proximity of this deposit to the railroad, the purity of the clay and the size of the deposit, as indicated by the prospect holes, are all facts in favor of its further development.
The clay in the ochre beds on the Long farm, township 30 north, range 23 west, section 21, a short distance south of the Kelso locality, has at- tracted some notice. The fifteen feet of clay found just above the ochre deposit is the purest and the finest quality of clay that has been seen in the Southwest. It is pure white, free from grit and very plastic. If the area of the bed is sufficiently large, as is indicated, this will prove even more valuable than the ochre.
Deposits of clay have also been found on the Lintner farm, on the south slope of a draw running into Clear creek; on the Gilmore farm, three miles northwest of the Kelso beds; near Evans' mill, fifteen miles northwest of Springfield ; east of Cave spring, on the Sac river; and another two and one-half miles northeast of Buckley.
The clays derived from the Upper Burlington limestone. as has been stated, are highly ferruginous, very impure, and mainly utilized in brick- making. The residual material is called "geest," and is mainly formed from the breaking down of the upper shaly and cherty beds of the Burlington formation, and in places partially derived from the sandstone that once over- laid the formation. These deposits are very large, scattered over the whole county, and are practically inexhaustible. Wherever subterranean drainage has been imperfect, the low, flat, swampy tracts are found, in most cases, to be underlaid by deposits of this clay. But few of the numerous and widely scattered beds have been worked.
The Rand brick-yard has been one of the most prominent and the largest yard which has supplied brick for the city of Springfield. It furnishes the raw material for the brick-yard in the western part of the city. This clay covers an area of about thirty acres. It is about eight feet deep, and requires, practically, no stripping. The deposit has been worked since the year 1881.
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GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
East of Springfield, on the McClure land, a small bed of clay has been worked for a number of years, and southwest of the city, near the old Kirch- graber place, on the Mount Vernon road, another brick-yard has been op- erated.
At Ash Grove, the Walker yard, opened in 1886, operates the clay bed located at the juncture of the main line and the Clinton branch of the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis railroad. The deposit covers about ten acres, varying from two to four feet in thickness, and requires no stripping. Other small deposits of clay are worked at Republic and Walnut Grove.
The clays of the Hannibal sandstones and shales have not, as yet, been utilized within the limits of Greene county, although they are used farther north and there is no reason why the heavy and wide-spread deposit in the north half of the county should not be made into the cheaper grades of clay products.
MOULDING SAND.
In several localities in Greene county, fine beds of moulding sand have been found in the Upper Coal Measures. That on the Hibler farm and the adjoining Kincaid tract, next to the railroad, in township 28, range 23 west, section 10, southwest quarter, has been largely used by the Springfield Stove Works.
IRON.
Only a few small beds and pockets of iron are found in Greene county. The sandstones of the Carboniferous frequently contain nodular masses of limonite. As these withstand the destructive power of atmospheric and aqueous agencies better than the matrix, they are left with the residual material, while the softer, lighter and more easily decomposable materials are carried away. Swallow* has given the following list of localities for iron ore in the form of hematite in Greene county :
Township 27 north, range 23 west, section 19, west half, hematite.
Township 27 north, range 23 west, section I, southwest quarter, hema- tite.
Township 30, range 19 west, section 18, oxide.
Township 27, range 24 west, sections 14 and 15, hematite.
Township 27, range 24 west, section 23, hematite.
Township 27, range 24 west, section 24 east, half brown hematite.
These, as well as other localities observed, are merely residual deposits of ore from the Coal Measures sandstones. Many samples of these deposits
*Geological Report on the Southwestern Branch of the Pacific Railroad, G. C. Swallow, 1859, p. 35.
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GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
may be seen in the stone walls and fence corners of Grand Prairie. In 1885 several shafts were sunk on the Hill farm, on the conglomerate ridge south of Bucksnort Hollow, township 29 north, range 19 west, section 5, north- east quarter, lot 7. A small local deposit of bog iron ore was discovered, evidently residual from the conglomerate. Sometimes the iron ore is found as residual material filling crevices, as, for example, on the Wilson farm, township 30 north, range 23 west, section 32, northwest quarter, where the vein, which was traced for twenty feet, was two and one-half feet wide and about twenty feet deep. The crevice walls were of sandstone. The drill penetrated nineteen feet further, in calcite and iron. The ore was a good quality of limonite.
The iron in the residual clay covering the upper beds of the Upper Bur- lington frequently approaches bog iron ore in composition. In the quarry near the old cotton mill in the city of Springfield, such a deposit was found filling a "flat opening" where the underground drainage had segregated it. The bed had a thickness of about two feet.
In a number of places in the Coal Measures sandstone deposits, in the- western part of the county, the residual material from denudation of the sandstone has been so great as to form large deposits of excellent yellow ochre. On the Long farm a fine bed of this ore was discovered in 1887, in township 30 north, range 23 west, section 31, northeast quarter. In 1892 it was leased to the Bois d'Arc Mining Company, and worked for a short time. Altogether, six shafts, with drifts, were sunk on the tract, and in the deepest shaft, which reached a depth of seventy feet, thirty-five feet of ochre was exposed, under fifteen feet of a fine white clay. The material requires washing, and the ochre is, apparently, of a very good quality. The Bois- D'Arc company discovered another deposit in township 30, range 23, section 31, southeast half, where, in the fall of 1891, a mill was erected. Undoubt- edly other excellent beds of ochre occur in the same township.
A number of small deposits have been worked between Republic and Billings. The ore, however, brings only about one dollar and fifty cents- per ton loaded on the cars at Billings, and is worth about three dollars per ton at the smelter at Carondelet, where most of the product is sent. It costs. about one dollar per ton to get the ore loaded on the cars, which leaves a profit of only fifty cents to the company. The ore from the Republic district, though not so abundant as that from the Billings diggings, is of better grade. The output of this region is principally limonite, and it is found in pockets varying from a few feet square to over an acre in extent. The amount of phosphorous in the ore is above the average, occasionally running over one per cent. The pockets are usually found imbedded in Graydon sandstone, the beds of which mark the course of the prehistoric Schoolcraft river, described
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GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
in the preceding chapter. These deposits of iron were carried down in solu- tion and in small quantities, and slowly deposited by this ancient stream.
LEAD AND ZINC.
Greene county has never been a large producer of lead and zinc, though seventy-five years before the Joplin field was discovered lead was known and worked, in a small way, by the Indians and hunters of this region. The location of the first deposit of lead discovered in these early days was on the James river, near Kershner's Spring, and later, the Phelps mines were located at this point.
The Phelps Diggings .- The shafts here are mainly situated along two crevice courses about seventy-five feet apart, running in nearly parallel lines from the James river on the south, in a course north 25 to 30 degrees west, through the ridge to the Suffolk diggings on its north slope. A section of one of the shafts shows :
Feet.
8. Limestone and chert, Lower Burlington, to top of ground at shaft. .40
7. Soil, made up of Chouteau and Hannibal. 16
6. Limestone, rather compact silico-magnesian, probably somewhat
metamorphosed 12
5. Sandstone, Phelps 2
4. Limestone, King's Branch 14
3. Alternating beds of hard chert and silicious limestone, Joachim 15
2. Sandstone, Saint Peter 3
I. Shale, alternating layers of finely laminated blue and white. 2
This shaft lies on one side of the crevice, and represents the geological horizons at this point. The main ore-body, at the Phelps mines, lies above the Phelps sandstones, and is made up of segregated mineral, disseminated through "gumbo," the wonderfully tenacious clay formed by the breaking down of the Hannibal shales. Great difficulty was found in cleaning this ore by hand, as the peculiar gangue resists separation to a remarkable degree. Various experiments were made as to the effects of frost and heat of the sun before hand-jigging, and roasting was also tried, all with no very satis- factory results, until later, the Nathalie and Suffolk companies put in steam concentrators. Neither the King's limestone nor the Joachim, on account of their hard, silicious nature at this point, are favorable for the accumulation of much of an ore-body, hence the upper run of mineral was soon exhausted in these mines. Any second run of mineral in this region would have to be looked for in the Joachim and Jefferson City limestones; but owing to the greater depth of these, and the narrowness of the ore-body, it would seem
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GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
that all profitable mining in the camps of this locality must be necessarily confined to the formations above the Phelps sandstones, viz., the Hannibal shales.
The Phelps mines represent one of the oldest lead camps in the South- west. Schoolcraft* speaks of camping, in January, 1819, at a place which was, undoubtedly, this one. He writes: "Twenty miles above the junction of these streams (James and Finley), on the immediate banks of the James river, are situated some valuable lead mines, which have been known to the Osage Indians, and to some White River hunters, for many years. The Indians have been in the habit of procuring lead for bullets at that place by smelting the ore in a kind of furnace made by digging a kind of pit in the ground, and casing it with some flat stones, placed so as to resemble the roof of a house inverted, such is the richness of the ore and the ease with which it melts. The ore has not, however, been properly explored, and it is im- possible to say how extensive the beds or veins may prove. Some zinc, in the state of sulphuret, is found accompanying it."
The ore, occurring here in the soft Hannibal shales, is easily worked and thus it is seen why the Indians, who are not fond of manual labor, should take such long journeys for the sake of procuring their lead with the least outlay of effort.
MINES WORKED LONG AGO.
In 1844 ex-Governor McClurg owned a store at Linn Creek, on the Osage river, from which point he distributed goods throughout the South- west. Hearing his teamsters speak of the discovery of lead at the old Hazel- wood mines in Webster county, and at the Phelps mines, he told them to bring back ore when they delivered their goods, as the price of lead was high at that time. He also set men at work at both of these camps, and he erected a small smelter at Hazelwood, to which point ore from the surrounding camps was hauled overland by team to St. Louis, a distance of over two hundred miles. The price of lead soon declining, work at these mines was stopped for want of cheaper transportation facilities. The Phelps mines were aban- doned until 1875. when the land was leased from its owner, Governor Phelps, by Messrs. Charles and Henry Sheppard, of Springfield, and Judge Picher, of Joplin. After some general mining, the old pump-shaft was sunk to a depth of sixty feet, and by drilling, seventeen feet more. The best run of mineral was found at a depth of twenty-five feet in the lower "gumbo" de- posit of the Hannibal shales, and above the Phelps sandstone. Search was made for a deeper run of mineral, but in vain, and the lease was soon given up. No further developments were made until 1885-6, when Mr. Joseph
*"A View of the Lead Mines of Missouri," Schoolcraft, 1819, p. 254.
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GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
O'Donnel re-leased it from Col. John E. Phelps. Mr. O'Donnel worked these mines profitably for about one year. In the latter part of 1886 Colonel Phelps engaged a superintendent and worked the mines up to about 1891. In the early part of this work the production was about two carloads of mineral per week.
The Pierson Creek Mines .- These mines are located in the southwest quarter of section 36 and northeast quarter of section 35, township 29, range 24 : also in northeast quarter of section 1, township 28, range 21, in the valley of Pierson creek, east of its union with the James river. Mining at this point began about 1885, upon land then owned by Mrs. McFarland, who leased eighty acres to Messrs. Ball and Thomas, of Springfield. Early in the spring of 1890 these persons subleased the property to Messrs. Sherman and Edgar, who, in November, 1892, transferred their interests to the Nathalie Mining Company, and these people, a few months later, sold their lease to Mr. R. P. Bowyer, who systematically and successfully worked this property until 1895. His drifting amounted to about one thousand two hundred feet along the ore-body. A peculiar feature of this mine was a series of faults in the ore-body. In following the northwesterly trend of the crevice, a blank would suddenly be reached. and on drifting from fifteen to thirty feet to the west, the continuation of the crevice would be found. Five of these dis- placements were encountered in drifting across the eighty-acre tract. Over fifty thousand dollars' worth of ore was taken from this mine. Fifteen per cent. of the bulk of this ore was galena. These mines were well equipped with steam hoisting plants and concentrating works. They are situated in a narrow valley, mainly on the west bank of Pierson creek, on a gentle slope toward the Upper Burlington plateau to the northwest, and the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis railroad passes down the valley, crossing the creek just south of the principal mines.
This mining camp is one of the most instructive points for the study of ore crevices and depositions, and their relations to geological horizons. The section given below will show the formations at this point. It is taken from the top of the bluff on the east side of the stream and just north of the master-fissure of the group, at Mr. Bowyer's "Sunrise" shaft, the fissure being at this point, associated with faults in which the hanging-wall is twenty feet higher than the foot-wall, the reverse of the general rule for faulting. The course of this master-fissure is about north thirty-five degrees west, having a dip of about sixty degrees northeast. The bluff is capped with ten to twenty feet of residual Upper Burlington chert :
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GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
Section of Bluff on Pierson Creek.
Feet.
5. Chert, residual, Upper Burlington 20
4. Limestone, Lower Burlington 60
3. Limestone, Chouteau, which extends 6 feet into the shaft 30
2. Shales, Hannibal, the ore horizon 40
I. Sandstone, Phelps, with fish teeth, forming the bottom of the run of minerals in this camp. I/2 foot
This fault shows the formation on the south side of the ore-body twenty feet lower down than those on the north side. Along the bluff a few hundred feet to the north, is another fault, and still a third is found about one hun- dred feet further in the same direction. Owing to the slope of the Lower Burlington chert, it is difficult to determine, accurately, the throw of the last two displacements. They vary from ten to twenty feet in the amount of dislocation. The disturbance of the strata caused by this faulting has de- ceived, and rendered the calculations of the miners worthless, as to the loca- tions of the ore horizon at a number of points in their vicinity.
. Returning to the main crevice a number of shafts have been sunk from the top of the bluff along the fault, and the narrow ore-body has been ex- posed in the Lower Burlington limestone, midway along the bluff, thus pre- senting the very best opportunity for the study of the fault, the fissure, and the worthless Lower Burlington ore-body, which is about eight feet wide. The hard Lower Burlington chert of the ore-body is mixed with a small amount of disseminated lead and blends.
In the Chouteau, the ore-body apparently narrows, and contains but a little lead, in cubical crystals. As this is thickly covered with Lower Bur- lington slope, but little opportunity is given for its study.
In the main shaft in the Gumbo, or Nathalie mine, about three hundred feet northwest from the old main shaft at the foot of the bluff, there is an excellent opportunity to study the deposition of the ore. The slope here is about eighty feet long, and varies in width from fifteen to thirty feet. There are, apparently, at this point, two nearly vertical fissures separated by a narrow belt of nearly barren rock. The ore in the upper part of the shales is mainly galena, in small cuboidal and modified octahedral crystals, dissem- inated in a white tallow clay lying in the shattered horizontal cracks of the shales. The lower twelve feet of the shales, which represent about the height of the slope, contain mainly zinc blends in the shape of thin, massive sheets, intercalated between the bedding planes opened by the shattering, and leading, as veinlets, to the two main runs of mineral. These form the two nearly vertical veins before referred to. These shafts are frequently coated with the white, compact tallow clay referred to above. The blende is also
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GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
found in small, disseminated crystals of great beauty in the softer shales. The vein-stuff consists of a very small amount of disseminated calcite ("tiff") and the wall-rock is the typical blue or bluish-drab Hannibal shale.
HOW THE ORE WAS DEPOSITED.
The ore seems to have been deposited under considerable pressure, filling the two main crevices, and penetrating the shattered wall-rock in tortuous veinlets, filling such spaces in more or less massive sheets, and then forcing its way into the softer portions of the shale wherever it could penetrate, forin- ing disseminated crystals. The blende is light colored, and is of great purity. The ore-body varies from twenty to thirty-five feet in breadth, and from eight to fifteen feet in thickness. The roof of the slope will, undoubtedly, furnish a great amount of galena when taken down. The ore is intimately associated with the "gumbo," a variety of tallow clay, from which it is sep- arated with great difficulty, and the waste dump contains a considerable amount of ore.
The Bowyer & Company Mine .- In the fall of 1895 Mr. Bowyer leased an adjoining forty acres across the "Gulf" railroad right of way, on what would be a probable extension of the ore-body of the old Gumbo and Natha- lie mine, in township 29, range 21, section 35, northeast of northwest. The first drill that was put down struck the continuation of the ore-body. Several months were spent in prospecting with the drill, in order to demonstrate the extent of the ore-body on this new lease. In October, 1896, a shaft was sunk and mining commenced on this new tract. This ore-body, as was seen in the old Gumbo mine, lies between the Hannibal shales and the Phelps sandstone. It is very irregular in shape, having a series of blind spurs running southeast from the main course of the ore deposit. This new ore-body was developed for about three hundred feet, and found to have a width of about twenty-five feet, with a thickness of eight feet. This was one of the most intelligently managed mines in the Southwest. The extent of the ore-body was calculated by a system of both vertical and horizontal drilling, by the means of which latter new parallel crevices were discovered. By utilizing the steam from the engine that ran the hoisting apparatus, the expense of running the diamond drill for the horizontal drilling was reduced to seventy-five cents per foot. The ore at these mines had always been extremely difficult to clean, owing to the fact that the disseminated crystals of lead and zinc are so closely as- sociated with the tenacious white tallow clay. Mr. Bowyer made a careful study of those conditions, and by means of some ingenious contrivances of his own. managed to thoroughly and economically clean this ore which was formerly so difficult to handle.
The Lewis Mine .- South of the Gumbo, or Nathalie, Mr. Bowyer did
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GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI.
some prospecting in 1895, sinking the "Sunrise" shaft at the summit of the bluff just east of Pierson creek; but it was not until 1896 that productive mining was done east of the stream. In that year, Mr. J. T. Lewis leased from Mr. T. J. Kershner the forty acres south and east of the Gumbo "forty," and about eight hundred feet east of the "Sunrise" shaft. The Lewis shaft is eighty-four feet deep, and the ore-body presents itself under, apparently,. the same conditions as those which prevail at the Nathalie and Gumbo mines. The drifts have an extent of about three hundred feet.
Suffolk Shafts .- About one-half mile to the southeast of the Nathalie shafts are the mines of the Suffolk Lead and Zinc Mining Company, which, at different times, have been called the Mumford or Kershner mines, and later worked by Captain Leader, of England. They were first opened by Mr. Kershner in 1886. They are located on the continuation of the crevices upon which the Phelps mines are situated, in township 28 north, range 20 west, section I, northeast quarter. A low divide separates the two groups, which are only two hundred feet apart. The following section, taken from the pump-shaft, gives the relative thickness of the geological formations at this point :
Section of the Suffolk Shaft.
Feet.
5. Soil
12.
4. Limestone, Chouteau
12
3. Shales, Hannibal. ore horizon.
1
1
1
1
1
1 1 30
2. Shale, Hannibal, broken gumbo and ore 1
9
1 I. Flint and sandstone, Phelps and Joachim 8 1 1
1
I
I
1
1
I
The Daisy Mine .* In sections 35 and 36, township 29, range 21, is located the Daisy mining property, formerly known as the old Kershner tract, comprising sixty-five acres. It is bordered by the main line of the Kansas City, Springfield and Memphis railroad, which runs a loading spur for ores and supplies to a point a quarter of a mile northwest of the north line of the property. Several successive veins: paralleling each other and sev- eral hundred feet apart, have been discovered and worked on this land. In 1896, on its western slope, vein No. I was first opened by Messrs. Lewis and Bench, and for several years a small ore-cleaning plant, consisting of crusher and rolls, turned out a considerable amount of particularly rich lead and zinc. In 1899, drilling done by Messrs. Lines & Company, located another rich vein of ore, some four hundred feet east of the Lewis and Bench vein. This new discovery, vein No. 2, was worked for a total length of one thou-
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