Bonne Terre, Mo -- setting for The Moon Pool

Bonne Terre is located in St. Francois County, about an hour south of St Louis on Highway 67. The name is French for "good earth," and the French were the first to mine lead in the area, in the mid-1700s. The St. Joseph Lead Company began mining operations here in 1865, and by a hundred year later the mine was worked out. The St. Joe company closed the Bonne Terre mine in 1962 and concentrated operations to the south. When the mine closed, the pumps stopped, and the nearly hundred miles of interconnected shafts, drifts, and ancient workings began to fill with billions of gallons of cold, gin-clear water.

By the 1970s the mine had been discovered by scuba divers, and some died in the depths of the mine before authorities began closing the entrances (such deaths were common elsewhere as well, especially in Florida, before safety and training standards were established by the Cave Diving Section of the National Speleological Society and other organizations) . In the 1980s, the mine was visited by Aqualung inventor Jacques Cousteau and his team of divers when the Calypso made an expedition up the nearby Mississippi River. In the 1980s, the Bonne Terre mine was purchased by a private firm. It is now a tourist attraction for mining history buffs and an uncommon destination for experienced scuba divers looking for a unique underwater experience.

The St. Joe company is still in operation, but has been reorganized as part of the Doe Run Company. The Remediation Project in the map below is a federal Superfund site where several hundred acres of mine dumps are being converted to recreational use. It is also the location of the The Moon Pool's fictional St. Joan Lead Mine.

Here's a quick tour of Bonne Terre, the small town in eastern Missouri that is the setting for The Moon Pool. Below is Staci's map of Bonne Terre and environs (you'll have to read the book to know who Staci is ). Below that is the Bonne Terre Memorial Library, and beneath that is the ancient clock in the library's entrance. Keep scrolling down for more photos.

The Missouri Lead Belt

Lead mining exploration in Missouri began with French explorations along the Meramec River and in the rugged St. Francois Mountains of southeastern Missouri in about 1700. In 1720, Philip Renault led an expedition that resulted in the opening of Mine La Motte in Madison County. The first mines were mostly surface diggings done by manual labor with pick and shovel. By 1725, Old Mines and Mine Renault were opened in Washington County. In subsequent years, lead mining was conducted on a small scale in St. Francois County (beginning about 1742) and Mine a' Burton (1763) at present day Potosi in Washington County. It was not until 1842 that the Valle Mines were opened in northern St. Francois County. The Civil War fueled an increased need for lead. St. Joe Lead Company was formed in 1864 to open and operate the Bonne Terre Mine and Flat River Mine in St. Francois County. The mines throughout this Old Lead Belt area ranged from surface mines to mines that extended several hundred feet below the ground surface. Production of these early mines was sufficient to meet needs for about next 100 years. The only mine of significance to be opened during this period was the Annapolis Mine, which opened in 1915.

By the 1940s, lead reserves in the Old Lead Belt on the eastern side of the St. Francois Mountains were seriously depleted and the exploration for new lead reserves moved to the western side of the St. Francois Mountains. Economic ore bodies are not near the ground surface in this area, but are present at depths ranging from about 500 feet to 1,500 feet below the ground surface. Lead ore was discovered near Eminence in the late 1950s, and in the Viburnum Trend area in the 1960s. The Viburnum Trend discoveries were shallower and were, therefore, developed first. Ten mines were eventually opened in the Viburnum Trend from the extreme southern edge of Crawford and Washington Counties to west central Reynolds County. The mines include Viburnum 27, Viburnum 28, Viburnum 29, Casteel, Magmont, Buick, Brushy Creek, West Fork, Fletcher, and Sweetwater.

In anticipation of future declining reserves of lead ore in the Viburnum Trend, mining companies continued to explore the area south of Winona and north of the Eleven Point River in the 1970s. More than 300 exploration boreholes have been drilled in this new exploration area.

-- United States Geologic Survey

Below, the library meeting room where the city council convenes on the second Tuesday of every month, and where the press conferences are held on the discovery of the bodies in the old St. Joan Lead Mine.

Below: The Police Department, the City Hall offices behind Subway, and the entrance to the Missouri Mines State Historical Site at nearby Park Hills, Mo.

Visit the Missouri Mines State Park official website.

The USGS page on the history of lead mining in Southeast Missouri.

Visit the St. Francois State Park official site.

Take a longer tour of Bonne Terre's historic buildings.

Interested in cave diving? Get the proper training first. Visit the CDS-NSS page.