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Description |
Long before white men settled in southwest Missouri, Native Americans roamed the area, camping beside sparkling spring-fed creeks. Along the banks, they discovered shiny outcrops of lead, which they used to craft tools and other items. As settlers began coming to the area in the 1840s and 1850s, they, too, discovered the valuable mineral, which was used in the manufacture of bullets, pottery, paint, glass, and pipes. These early small-scale mining operations developed into the settlements of Leadville Hollow (2 miles west of Joplin) and Minersville (present day Oronogo). But the Civil War put a halt to area mining. Tom Livingston, a miner at Minersville, dumped several tons of his own lead into Center Creek to keep Union forces from using it for bullets. Livingston, who hailed from Tennessee, then took off to join the Confederate Army. After the war, area farmers accidentally dislodged chunks of lead while tilling the rocky soil. E.R. Moffet and J.B. Sergeant, two miners from Oronogo (formerly Minersville) get credit for sparking the mining boom that put Joplin on the map. In 1870, using $500 they'd won hoisting the most lead out of a shaft, they launched out on their own, digging on the east side of Joplin Creek (just north of what is now Broadway). They struck a rich vein that produced more than $60,000 worth of ore in the first 90 days. Moffet and Sergeant erected a smelter near where the Union Depot stands today. Soon there were 14 lead furnaces operating in the valley, smelting hundreds of tons of ore weekly and converting it into pigs of lead. But without railroads, there was no easy way to transport the pig lead to market. It had to be hauled to Kansas City by wagon then shipped to St. Louis by freight train. Within a year, 500 prospectors had streamed into the area and, by the end of May, 1872, that number had risen to 2,700 with another 1,200 in the region. There were no roads, so they came any way they could-by horse, mule, covered wagon, or on foot. The men had nowhere to live, so they pitched tents, threw together shelters of brush-covered poles, boxes, and scrap metal, or simply lived in wagons or out in the open. There was a great demand for town lots, so John Cox platted the town of Joplin on the east side of Joplin Creek in 1871. Soon afterwards, Patrick Murphy and W.P. Davis of Carthage platted Murphysburg on the opposite side of the creek. After two years of squabbling, the rival settlements merged and incorporated as the town of Joplin on March 23, 1873. The first newspaper, appropriated named the Mining Journal, began publication that year. The first arrivals came from nearby counties, but as word of the rich strikes spread, a less reputable element drifted in. As soon as the miners could afford it, they moved into better quarters. Meanwhile, the "derelicts and dopers" according to historian Dolph Shaner, squatted in the Joplin Creek valley (also known as the Kansas City Bottoms, Coke Hollow, and Sunshine Hollow), giving Joplin a bad name. These were the "grubstake " days, when landowners grub-staked a prospector, leasing him a plot of land (usually 200 x 200 feet) and advancing money and equipment to sink a shaft. The miners drilled holes by hand and then blasted them out with dynamite or powder. A typical supply order read "40 sticks of powder, 15 caps, 30-feet of fuse, and a gallon of whiskey." If the miner did not "get a shine "(find ore) he could give up the lease and try another. If he struck pay dirt, he developed the mine at his own expense and paid 20% royalty to the owner. When a hole was mined out, the prospector simply gathered up his gear and moved on to another spot. As a result, thousands of abandoned shafts dotted the landscape, earning Joplin the nickname "city of holes " in the late 1870s. The open shafts created quite a hazard, killing many early residents who stumbled into them in the dark. After the death of a prominent citizen, the city required that land owners and miners fill up abandoned mines located close to streets and roads. The 1870s mining boom town bristled with excitement as poor miners became wealthy overnight. Every Saturday night from 7:00 to 8:00, miners, operators, land-owners, and ore-buyers gathered at the hotels and banks to settle accounts. At 6:00, the sidewalks began filling with people and soon became impassable. Over $110,000 changed hands every Saturday night. Men crowded into the theaters or hung out at the saloons, where the talk centered on mines, royalties, and strikes. Miners could pay theater admission or buy supplies by depositing chunks of lead in collection boxes. Even children used lead for legal tender, collecting leftover minerals from waste dumps; these "shiners " could be traded at the grocery store for 5 cents worth of candy. Joplin grew by leaps and bounds. In 1874, its population was listed as 5,000; within two years it had grown to 7,500 with another 2,000 to 3,000 in the region. But the biggest impetus for growth and development came with the first railroad, built from Joplin to Girard, Kansas in 1877. By 1898, four railroads serviced Joplin, carrying out 30,000 car-loads of minerals per year. An assortment of towns and camps in Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma comprised the 2,500 square mile region called the Tri-State Mining District. Joplin served as the hub. In its first 20 years, Joplin's population grew to 18,000, with more wealth per capita than any other city its size in the state. In 1897, the "Klondike of Missouri " produced $1 million more in capital than all of the gold mines in Alaska. Ten thousand men worked in mining-related industries. In the early twentieth century, mining methods had advanced considerably. Large mine companies with expensive machinery and buildings replaced the small, primitive operations. In 1907 and 1908, an economic panic brought the price of ore down, forcing many area mines to close. But then a tariff on zinc ore revived the market in 1912. After World War I broke out, ore prices soared to unheard-of levels, and the scramble for mining land, leases, and machinery was on. Eastern investors swooped in, bringing an assortment of technicians and engineers intent on improving mining methods. The golden years of the 1920s culminated in a peak mine output of almost 16 million tons in 1926. Each week, area mills shipped out some 4,000 ore-loaded railroad cars to all parts of the country. During the Great Depression, demand for lead and zinc dropped significantly. As a result, prices plunged and employment sank to as low as 500 part-time mine workers. World War II brought some relief when the U.S. government imposed a "premium price plan " which boosted zinc and lead production in the Tri-State district. Sources:Draper, William R. and Mabel. Old Grubstake Days in Joplin. E. Haldeman-Julius, 1946.Frisco Railroad Company. "Klondike of Missouri." 1898 pamphletGray, Howard. "Eagle-Picher Becomes Mining Field Leader." Joplin Globe, Centennial Edition. April 1, 1973.Gray, Howard. "Joplin: Metropolis of Famed Tri-State Mining District." Joplin Globe, Centennial Edition. April 1, 1973. Joplin Museum Complex. 2000 Calendar.Kirkman, Kay. "Back then, lead was king, but 'jack' helped build Joplin." Joplin Globe. March 21, 2004.Livingston, Joel T. History of Jasper County and Its People. Chicago: Lewis, 1912.North, F.A., ed. The History of Jasper County, Missouri. Des Moines, Iowa: Mills, 1883.Shaner, Dolph. The Story of Joplin. N.Y.: Stratford House, 1948.Weidman, Samuel. Miami-Picher Zinc District. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma, 1932. |
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