Ann, The Virginia Mines were at the end of the road where you lived -- down past the White Acres community and partly located on the Loraine Dierking property. In fact, the mines reopened during WWII and I believe your father might have worked there briefly. Your mother donated a miner's cap to the St. Clair museum and she believed he had worn it when he worked there; however, someone else told me they thought it was from the Pea Ridge mines and I believe he also worked there. I don't know where the cap was from but it was a nice miner's cap with the acetylene light on it. The Virginia Mines street in St. Clair continued out what is now Highway K and then followed what is now called Virginia Mines Road (where you lived) out to the mines and across the river (forded -- no bridge) toward the Virginia Mines Baptist Church. Virginia Mines was a thriving community in the 1800s before St. Clair (first called Traveller's Repose) was ever a village. When it became known where the railroad was going to be built, several influential Virginia Mines people moved to St. Clair to be near the railroad and more followed after the railroad came. There is a cemetery on the property known as Hidden Valley on a hillside where three Inge children were buried with matching headstones. There were probably other graves there as well. I believe Ken Middleton (a local archaelogist, now deceased) told me there were close to 100 graves in the cemetery, but the stones are gone. George Hearst first learned about mining at the Virginia Mines according to his own writings, and he became a famous mining engineer (and U.S. Senator) in the West. The school at Virginia Mines was known as The Academy. I would be interested in knowing what marriage record you have found and whatever information that might have been included. Sue Cooley > I just found a marriage record that has the marriage taking place at > Virginia Mines, Franklin Co., MO. I was raised on a road in Franklin Co., > MO that was called Virginia Mines. Does anyone know where the Virginia > Mines mentioned in the marriage record is/was located. The Virginia Mines > Road where I was raised was about 3 miles outside St. Clair, Franklin Co., > MO. > Thanks for any help anyone can give me. > Ann