This cache is one of several placed in Herculaneum to celebrate the Great American Eclipse (GAE), August 21, 2017. Not since 1442 has a Total Solar Eclipse occurred in this part of Missouri. In fact, it has been 148 years since a Total Solar Eclipse has occurred anywhere in Missouri. And the next Total Solar Eclipse will not occur in this part of Missouri until 2505! I doubt anyone alive today will be around to see the next one.
Eclipse Timeline in Herculaneum
Partial Eclipse Starts: 11:49:46 am
Totality Starts: 1:17:06 pm
Totality Ends: 1:19:38 pm
Partial Eclipse Ends: 2:44:37 pm
Please wear special eclipse viewing glasses for all phases of the eclipse.
Doe Run started life in 1864 as the St. Joseph Lead Company, better known as St. Joe, which started lead mining on a small scale in southeastern Missouri. Despite the isolation and hardships of those days, it prospered, and in 1892 it started up its smelter in Herculaneum, where all smelting was consolidated in 1920.
With the gradual exhaustion of the Old Lead Belt after World War II, St. Joe and others explored other areas in southeastern Missouri and found more lead/zinc deposits, including the extensive Viburnum Trend on which Doe Run's U.S. mining operations are now concentrated.
In 1981, St. Joe was acquired by the Fluor Corporation. In 1986, St. Joe and Homestake Lead formed a short-lived partnership called the Doe Run Company which brought Homestake's Buick mine, mill, and smelter into St. Joe. After dissolution of the partnership, St. Joe converted the Buick smelter for lead recycling, which grew to be the biggest single site facility in the world. In 1994, the Renco Group acquired St. Joe from Fluor and renamed the company the Doe Run Resources Corporation, registered to do business as the Doe Run Company.
The recycling smelter at Boss, Missouri, handles old batteries, scrap lead and lead-bearing hazardous waste. Doe Run's U.S. mines are all on the Viburnum Trend, a 64 km long mineralized shoot with an average width of 150 meters, a thickness of 3 to 30 meters, and an average depth of 300 meters.
Doe Run was cited regularly by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for infringing emission limits, contaminating roads and generally polluting the immediate vicinity of the smelter. Exceeding of emission limits resulted in the reduction of the permitted capacity of the Herculaneum smelter. Road contamination resulted with orders to clean up certain roads and to wash down vehicles before they went onto public roads. The company was ordered by the EPA to address issues relating to elevated lead blood levels in the community and lead in community soils adjacent to the smelter. It spent $10.4 million on buying up to 160 residential properties close to the smelter that were contaminated and was to clean up contaminated soils. The smelter has since been closed. The Herculaneum smelter, the last remaining primary lead smelter in the United States, ceased operations on December 31, 2013.
This cache is placed at the location of a piece of St. Joe smelting history. It is placed with permission of Dennis Mitchell, St. Joe Company, Herculaneum. Please bring your own writing instrument. There is nearby parking for 2 or 3 vehicles. Do not disturb the vegetation. A gold dollar coin is the prize for the first to find this cache.