The Lost History Museum of Valles Mines
In The Valley Where Time Stood Still
Day by day, we restore, map, and document the town and times
of Valles Mines, 2nd oldest village and farthest north mine of the Lead Belt in Southeast Missouri.
Actual physical artifacts are brought to us by former residents and their family members or visitors
who come from all over the world (Australia, 2018; New Zealand, May 2019; London, June 2019).
Who would ever have suspected that they would someday return to bring us their stories... Or that a Francois Valle
descendant would move to Sydney, Australia?
Lost History: What happened IS our mission
Our Origin: Here in the Lost History Museum of the old village of Valles Mines, things happen a little differently.
One day around 2001, Steve Frazier, former Superintendent Of Lands for 35 years, now Museum Curator, and I, John Harrison, a Director of
the Valle Mining Company since 1974, left the front door open while sweeping. For fun we had just hung our first
(read: "only") historic picture on the wall (read: torn in half, parts missing, smudged). A former village resident stopped in
to buy a Mushroom Hunting Permit and, upon seeing the picture, mentioned that he had a picture with the missing other half still intact, that is,
the building that used to stand next door. In the months, and now years, that followed, this scene repeated itself over and over
until all the walls became covered in photos and artifacts as Lost History slowly revealed itself.
Soon we were on our way to reconstructing a pretty good picture of the old days of Valles Mines and its 74 buildings,
several mills and smelters, and over a hundred mines [see map on left of the mountain and its miles of its cave system, now being
surveyed underground (See Inside the Garotte Mine).
Or so we thought... It was named Valles Mines, we found lots of mines, only... where was Francois Valle who had founded the place?
As it turned out, he was nine generations ago... and we had only gone back seven. We are just now finding out we had completely
overlooked the return of his son Jean Baptiste Valle (I) and his son Jean Baptiste Valle (II) years after the War, the French And Indian War.
Lost History Museum of Valles Mines, Missouri
Nonprofit #N001693115 and now a Federal 501(c)(3)
| Our Mission Statement |
| - To preserve physical evidence of previous Times, Civilizations and Technologies and |
| - if possible, to re-create those Eras and their events, |
| - emphasizing through education, celebrations, re-creations, music, exhibitions, websites or other digital and analog media, |
| - how they led to Demise or Prosperity, and |
| - to collect enough context from the Era to avoid its mistakes or content ourselves with its successes. |
| - To find out where everyone went or to contact them and to receive their contacts, or even to bring them back home. |
For centuries people have come into contact with Valles' Mines, lived there,
mined there, passed through, died there, or descended from those who did.
They number well into the thousands, scattered all over the world now.
The Lost History Museum has made it one of its Missions to find out where everyone came from and went,
to contact them, to receive their contacts, to celebrate their history,
or even help bring them back home or archive their live's stories and geneologies.
If you have information on former residents, barely alive, languishing in jail, buried in our
Cemeteries of the Villages or just the whereabouts of their surviving families, please contact us.
| Steve Frazier | HistorianSteve@GMail.com | 636-551-8705 |
| John Harrison | John@LostHistoryMuseum.com | |
Highlights
1749 Francois Valle, a subject of the King of France, brought French civilization here, a culture that survives even today. The
French subjects crossed to the west side of the Mississippi River after the British colonized the East side of the river and the east coast.
1780, May 26th. To defend against the British, this time against their "Grand Plan" to expand on the west side of the river, and
now as Commandante of the Fort of Ste. Genevieve, Francois Valle sent the town's militia including his son up north to the Spanish
Fort San Carlos at St. Louis (San Luis) to answer their call for help.
The Spanish and French defenders, even though outnumbered 3 to 1, fought
and defeated the Iroquois war parties and British at the Battle of Fort San Carlos for which the King of Spain rewarded
Francois Valle by making him a Spanish Don.
Their victory stopped the British westward expansion plans.
The defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781 by the Continental Army under George Washington with the help of the French Army and
Navy stopped the British in the east. In 1803 the French First Republic sold the Louisiana Purchase to the United Colonies of
America, now known as the United States of America.
To whomever recently built
Ballpark Village on top of Fort San Carlos in St. Louis, the Lost History Museum of Valles Mines is aspiring to build
our own fort replica and
reenacting the battle some day here on the Museum grounds.
Everyone else, please come by the Museum for the goûter hour at 4PM (currently coffee or a chocolate shake).
You don't have to speak French anymore to enjoy
le goûter. We welcome your company!
A startling and historically accurate reproduction of the era and how they lived back then:
IMDB "Barkskins", TV series