Mississippi Lime Recreation Area (Mines Inside)

[Headframe Hunters]

I just wanted to share some recon I did with the UO crowd. I was driving through Ste. Gen County on the way to visit family in Florida for Christmas, and stopped by a site I'd been curious about. USGS topographic maps show three portals in a hillside, two of which are located in a mined-out surface pit.

I drove by; there is a park on the site. It looks to be the Mississippi Lime Co.'s employee recreation area; presumably the company decided to repurpose the property after shutting down operations there. This is definitely private property, and most likely belongs to Mississippi Lime. I cannot find any reference to the property in MSHA records, indicating that the mine was closed before about 1978. MRDS suggests that it was operated by Western Lime Works but isn't any more help than that.

I don't really feel comfortable messing around on their property, and the company is large enough that asking nicely isn't likely to work like it does in the Kentucky-Illinois spar district, so I figured I'd pass the information on to folks here. Let me know if you turn anything interesting up!

Site is located at:
37°59'06.7"N 90°04'58.0"W
37.985185, -90.082779

[Chris]

Thanks for sharing. That's very interesting, it even shows up on Google Maps as a green blob how they use to mark parks.