Very nice. Thanks for posting that. Any chance you have lat/long locations for the mine entrances? I plan to cross reference this by name with my material to see if there is new information here. I suspect there is. Mike Flannigan [email protected] wrote: > Subject: Underground Mines of St. Louis > Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 22:32:23 -0500 > From: "ShowMeMule" <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > > Quite some time ago sombody inquired about clay or coal mines in St. Louis. Their ancestor was a miner if I recall correctly. > > I can across a pretty comprehensive listing of 80 or so underground clay and coal mines under the City of St. Louis (a few in the > county as well). Its pretty interesting to see we have entire blocks that have mines beneath the surface. Most of them were dug > out using vertical shafts 40-100 ft. deep. This explains why we have so many bricks in this city. We have abundant fire clay > deposits so mines riddle our underground. Some of the old bricks we find today bear the names of the various clay mines (like > "Laclede" or "Evans and Howard"). > > In some areas of the city, there are mine shafts even inside the basements of the houses. That could be a source of free air > conditioning if one looks to the bright side of the matter. Other shafts dot beneath alleys and roadways. Some blocked up by brick > and others simply by timbers. The "Dogtown" area and South St. Louis contain the largest acreage of underground mines. (There is a > mine beneath the St. Louis Zoo and another beneath Deaconess Hospital). A lot of the area north of Watson Road, between Gravois and > Kingshighway is underlaiden by vast pillared rooms that interconnect from one to another. One mine was accidently opened during the > widening of Gravios in 1930. > > There is much we don't know as most mines were never mapped. Many are only known by the approximate location of its entry shaft. > They date anywhere from the 1820's to up in the 1940-50's when the last of them were mined. I posted a listing on the web at: > http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/underground_stl.htm > > or go to my main page and follow the link. > > Scott K. Williams, > History's Time Portal to Old St. Louis > http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/