Pioneer women had a lonely lot, not without danger. Calling 911 would not happen for 200 years.

Francois Valle, son of Charles LaVallee, was born in Beauport, Quebec, Canada in 1716. His grandfather, Pierre LaVallee, a surgeon, had immigrated to Quebec in 1665 from St. Saens, Dist. of Rouens, France.

Francois had heard in Haute-Louisiane the Indians had discovered lead on top of the ground and he wanted to buy it directly from them. But it was in an area far, far to the South near a French settlement called Kaskaskia, in the "Illinois Country" (about halfway between Quebec and New Orleans) in the "Upper Louisiana" or what he would have called the "Haute-Louisiane" in Nouvelle-France (New France).

So he came down the Mississippi River and took up residence in Kaskaskia and being familiar with commerce on the East Coast, traded and sent lead back to New York and Philadelphia. Valle's lead was used by the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War.

Soon he was doing so well that he was able to marry the Mayor's daughter. And so Francois and Marianne Billeron Valle moved from Kaskaskia, due west across the Mississippi River to what would later bear their name, Valles Mines (in French that would mean "The mines of the Valles" or "the mines of the Valle Family").

They lived in a log cabin built for them as a wedding present by her father Leonard Billeron. This log cabin (now 14115 Valles Mines School Road) currently houses centuries later and continually in use, our Lost History Museum. The rear of the house was added 124 years ago.

Eventually, gathering lead found poking out of the ground gave way to digging deeper than the shallow mining close to the surface seldom deeper that 6 feet. The early mines that Valle operated were very shallow but eventually European deep-mining practices came and would prove essential because the hypogene cave system holding the ores had got broken into segments by major earthquakes a hundred centuries before. Mining this cave segment at 20-30 feet deep, even though the ground slanted because of the reverse-thrust faulting, became the next mining feast. Caves at 30 feet deep right next to it, as pictured in Principles of Mining 1907's "FIG. 7.". It soon became obvious that mining required more work than any one man could ever accomplish so Valle took to leasing the land to other miners. A mining village grew up from the Traing Post village and then a town and soon Valles Mines became a population center. But as the French And Indian War had begun Marianne and Francois now took up residence in Sainte Genevieve, 37 miles away, a river port for lead shipments, and full of French culture, where they lived into their later years.

A triangle of French civilization had grown up nearby (see map below), made up of Valles Mines, French Village, and Sainte Genevieve. To this day, Y-Highway connects Valles Mines to French Village which connects to Sainte Genevieve which connects to the Mississippi River. Lead was hauled from the Mines, first by saddle bags, then by ox-cart. Later as more and more lead mines were discovered to the south, the Plank Road and the Selma Road (which goes across the Mining Company property near the Garotte Mine and over the Upper Lake dam) were replaced by internal-combustion engines moving trucks, then a hundred years later, railroads as mining practices went deeper and deeper, with shafts reaching 100 feet. Chester Haverstick recalled that he at 16 had loaded lead into boxcars with a coal shovel at the Valles Mines Railway Station on the MR & BT (Mississippi River & Bonne Terre Railway). Now lead is shipped by 18-wheelers. Mark Freise, a trucker at the time, recalls picking up processed lead nuggets at the Herculaneum Smelter where they would load his straightt-back trailor from above with 6-foot puddles of lead. It was so heavy that no more than ten puddles could load the trailor-trailer above 100,000 pounds if you didn't pay attention. But we diverge.

War Party Indians were not what you wanted to see coming to your neighborhood.

[The French 'Colonial Era' refers to the culture there in the 1700's and its connection all the way back to Europe. England, France, and Spain all wanted a piece of the New World and for good reason. And so the fighting began, Puritan and Protestant British against French Catholics.

Later Valles Mines would become part of the Louisiana Purchase under Jefferson (1803). Valles' Mines lies 30 miles west of Ste. Genevieve in the Lead Belt, founded and thriving well before St. Louis. The Mineral Area of Missouri may have passed out of its heyday but we have found residents of Valles Mines living as far away as Australia. If you know anything about the area or even if you don't, please stop by the Lost History Museum and add your 2 cents worth.]

The French Colonial era uniquely defined the culture of the area for centuries. Thanks to the annual reenactments at Fort DeChartres in Illinois and the work of many dedicated reenactors, you can see for a few days an entire village reconstructed in historically accurate dress and habits from the Colonial Era. Maybe someday they will come to Valles Mines. The pictures shown above were donated by prize winning reenactors at Fort DuChartres, Prairie Durocher, Illinois and display the dress of the times with historical accuracy, all the way down to the Indian brave's facepaint.