Valles Mines Artesian Well, Our Sérendipité

Deep Drill No.1..."Then Came That Sound...the sound of water!"

Deep Drill No.1

1914: The Valle Mining Company decides to prospect for lead ore but this time hundreds of feet deep, much deeper down than its 100 foot deep surface mines, down into the Bonne Terre Formation, perhaps to find the Viburnum Trend mineral horizon and its unlimited wealth. But The Question: "Does the Trend reach this far north into our Southeast Missouri Lead Belt?" To find out the answer at the time, a steam-powered diamond-encrusted core drill was the only technology that could find out.

At first, the day's drilling proved nothing. Over and over, the decision came down. "We'll go deeper!" 100, 200, 400, 800 feet deep they drilled, still nothing. Then came that sound...the sound of water! At 840 feet they struck the aquafer of an underground river. What was once a dry drill hole transformed in seconds into a gusher. Water poured out at 75 gallons per minute, enough to fill a modern day drywall bucket in 4 seconds.

It took 50 years but the Missouri Dept. of Natural Resources traced the source of the water south for 200 miles, back to an underground river in Arkansas. That river feeds this well from deep within the aquafer to this day. People drive hundreds of miles, even from Illinois [farthest visitors: New Zealand!], to fill their water jugs. The oldest man in town attributes his old age to the water, drinking it every day.

To see how pure it really is and what's in it, Click Here

The Well continues to flow 112+ years later. Even during the worst droughts, the well continues to produce. It drains nearby into the creek which has the perfect pool (3 feet deep) to the left for training new anglers or just getting kids wet on a hot day (watch the rocks, they can be slippery).

Artesian Well videos 2025

112+ years later, even during the worst drought, the well continues to produce. Nearby wells recently have diminished its volume but the purity and rare flavor endures to this day. A great place for a microbrewery if you know someone who wants to start one.

But There's More ...The Two Mysteries: Drill Hole No.2 and Drill Hole No.6

Mystery #1

Deep Drill No.2 According to logs, the driller strike an underground river in Drill Hole No.1 but next, and only a mile away by the Big Lode Mine, he struck a huge deposit of lead in Drill Hole No.2 when he brought up a core that had drilled through 6 feet of lead. Although the largest hand-mined lead nugget at Valles Mines proved to be, conversationally, the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, this discovery would have rated as even bigger. The Company never pursued this prospecting discovery.

The Valle Mining Company under Welton Rozier hoped to follow up on previous zinc discoveries in hopes of extending the Garotte Mines. But, as Fate would have it, instead, all operations ended before they could try. The miners had to be sent home as a result of an all-important Edgar Zinc smelter closing in Carondolet where energy had been cheap before the European war effort, that is, until demand peaked with war in Europe in 1914.

Even as the Western Front began to freeze in autumn 1914, mobile warfare became more and more important.

This setback to the Company got an added contributing factor from 1917: a labor shortage where 4 million able-bodied men [read: our miners] got drafted and sent to WW I overseas, and who, in 1918-1920, brought back the Spanish Flu Pandemic, as well as 204,000 wounded, and 116,708 dead. Despite Rozier's later attempt to build a charcoal-fired zinc smelter near the Tunnel in 1924, it was doomed to failure because of the huge fuel requirements for smelting zinc ore. Mining zinc was effectively over..

While Drill Hole No.2's precise location has been lost, based on old surveyed maps it is located about 100 feet south of the Frazier Quarry (formerly by the "Big Bill" Mine's twin shafts) and towards the Big Lode Mine. The precise depth of the strike, if determined, has been lost to history. Deep Drill No.2's cast iron drill guide remains a project for a metal detector as the 10 foot tall casing remains in place waiting for its rediscovery.

Mystery #2

Perhaps the Mining Company should have taken up Mr. Finney's offer to pump and mine the flooded Garotte Mine at Drill Hole No.6 in 1911. That zinc mine, although surveyed under ground by Doe Run Lead, to this day has never been mined despite its location being well known and recently revisited. The value of zinc then: $24/ton. Today, over $3000/ton. In 47 years of zinc mining, the Garotte Mines produced 54,000 tons of zinc ore out of 5 of 6 mines. The flooded mine could hold 10,800 tons of ore (64,870-54,000 tons) worth $32,400,000 at today's prices. You can buy a VEVOR gasoline powered, 3" Trash Pump today for $219.99.