George Washington Carver Park

Urban exploration in Springfield, Missouri
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RedRook
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Re: George Washington Carver Park

Post by RedRook »

Jesta wrote:Don't mean to drag up old threads but read this awhile back and will answer most questions about that park.

http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/l ... /26048091/
That explains some of it. It still seems like the northwest side of town gets shafted on parks. Every other corner has some pretty decent ones. The ones on this side of town seem to have been done by much more apathetic developers, but apparently that is intentional.
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RedRook
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Re: RE: George Washington Carver Park

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gimpface wrote:
RedRook wrote:I'm pretty sure they would mark this if they knew about it. They've marked all of the hazardous lead and zinc east of there. The studies I've found about the Jordan Creek branches shows copper, lead, and zinc being the main pollutants, but these are runoff pollutants mainly coming from modern pollution in general that can flow from downtown. East of that side of town you have something closer to a dump where old mines were just abandoned. The lead, zinc, and copper containing tailings were just left where the mines were. I'm not aware of a toxic chemical dump other than that unless I'm missing something.
Since we're bringing old threads back from the dead, I'd like some more info on these mines. Are these just those old ones off Sunshine East of town (Wolverine, Gem mine, Etc) or is this something else?
I've posted about them before, you can get a Google overlay at Geostrat. I counted over 50 abandoned mines lining the two elevated regions the railroad runs between as it crosses under Sunshine, and then I got bored, so over 50. The mines you mention are among them, but there are many in the middle of housing developments to the east of the Oak Grove neighborhood now. I was actually trying to say Oak Grove Neighborhood isn't a chemical dump as far as I could tell. The pollutants there come from the west, not the east, and they are what you'd expect to come from downtown.
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RedRook
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RE: George Washington Carver Park

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As far as I can tell, a vast majority of the mines are primitive pit mines made by the French before the Louisiana Purchase. You can read about Schoolcraft's encounters with them right after the Louisiana purchase. They were using the lead for ammunition. They apparently found even bigger deposits west of our town, quite a bit west, almost to Kansas and Oklahoma. These aren't the types of mines you'll explore, but the mining techniques were inefficient enough that much of the material they were searching for is still there.
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Re: George Washington Carver Park

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Ah, I'm familiar with Schoolcraft's work, and with the sort of remnants to expect with workings of that age. They're probably still worth looking at just for the historical value.
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