Valles Mines, Missouri, U S A
Founded in 1749 by Francois Valle years before he became Don Francois Valle.
The Valle Mining Company's 4500 acre property every year absorbs 21,000
tons of carbon dioxide and puts out 14,000 tons of oxygen.
This is enough to meet the needs of 63,000 people. [USDA Forest Facts]
Site Map
Recent Mining Operations 2001 to Present
Site #1 - Quarrying off the Frazier's surface - 3D Map of the mineral horizon? The Big Bill
revisited 2002
"Fire in the Hole!" First blast. Will there even be a Frazier Quarry?
After 250 acres of exploration, drilling through dozens of outcropping shelves to no avail, finally, consolidated
rock, no punch-throughs at 14 feet into dirt beneath, no fault lines, just solid rock as deep as we can drill.
We clear "no more than 1/4 acre" per DNR spec and drill out at the edges. Still solid.
Can this hill top be original
mountain top? This rock's overburden stays 6 inches or less from the surface even on its downhill slopes.
Time to blast. Clayton decides on the pattern and depth to drill.
Wayne parks the dozer and with the crew loads the drill holes with explosives
The holes are filled, charges set. Easy does it. Safety first!
Every precaution is painstakingly observed.
We take cover. The warning call, "Fire in the Hole", and Frazier Quarry begins.
Such unexpected success makes the next step obvious, namely, to answer, "What is the lateral extent of this rock?" Previous
mining of the Big Bill and Little Bill Mines has left a network of roads to where we want to be. No roads into forest with all that in
place. To "prove" the extent of the discovery on top of the hill we next drill-as-we-go, down the service road as it slopes to the foot
of the Big Bill's twin shafts. What they would have done for this equipment 75 years ago! But no one dead or alive could have expected
what we found that day.