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Reviews
| Missouri Mining Heritage Guide. By John R. Park. South Miami, Fla.: Stonerose Publishing Co., 2005. 279 pp., illus., maps, notes, index. $22.95 comb bound (ISBN 978-0-9706697-42).
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The Missouri Mining Heritage Guide is a small book with plastic covers and plastic binding, an interior full of small print in narrow columns, and sections of uneven length. It contains maps of differing sizes, weird symbols, and photos of mines, buildings, signs, and objects strange and unfamiliar. In the words of the Cheshire Cat, the best place to begin is at the beginning.
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The front cover has a photograph of the St. Joe Lead Company Shaft no. 17 with the book title centered in the upper portion. This book is small (6 inches by 8 1/2 inches) with heavy plasticized covers, meant for traveling and durability. The binding allows easy page turning. The inside front cover lists the abbreviations and symbols used in the volume, while the inside back cover contains a legend of map location symbols.
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The first two things of note are the small print size and the massive amount of data the book contains. At first, the small print size (even smaller on the maps) seems problematic, until one realizes that the small print size allows the book to be small enough so that it "travels well." The maps are very helpful, but the reader will also need a full-size Missouri road map.
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With this publication, the reader will need to actually read the four-page preface. It contains a detailed explanation of this book in relation to the Mining in America series published by Stonerose. The preface also provides an explanation of the themes and scope of the volume, a section on cautions and caveats, information on tours of working mines, the acknowledgments, and the sources of the illustrations. The table of contents is 6 pages long and covers 421 mines or locations as well as the volume's 102 maps and miscellaneous historic subjects. The six-page introduction includes general remarks on the history of Missouri mining, a long historic overview, other minerals, information sources, and contacts.
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John Park has taught a university-level course in mineral resources for many years with geological, historical, and economic themes. This course also included field trips to locations that presented mining history and information, which accounts for the inclusion of small museums, state parks, water tower photographs, and interpretive centers, as well mines and mining districts in the main section of the book (pp. 19–248). The book is liberally sprinkled with small photographs, maps, and subject-oriented historical discussions of various lengths. Particularly enjoyable is a small section on Native American mining.
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The List of Mines (pp. 249–264) was created as the author's personal reference table and contains all of the location information he was able to garner. He claims it may have as much as a 15% error rate, depending on the sources of his information. The list is arranged alphabetically, so if the name of the mine is not known, it may take time to read through the 15 pages of this list to find the right one. The location includes the county along with the latitude and longitude of each mine. UTM grid coordinates or township/range/section would have been preferable; however, the current widespread use of personal electronic location devices, such as a Garmin, which use latitude and longitude, makes this data easy to input. This type of table takes a lot of effort to create and is a useful tool for historical researchers in mining, geography, archaeology, and architecture, as well as for doing fieldwork in other sciences. The index (pp. 265–279) was created from key words and key phrases used throughout the book.
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Although I have not read the entire book (which would have been like trying to read an encyclopedia), many of the sections were of particular interest, such as the historical overview, prehistoric mining, historic lead mining, and other sections where the attraction was a photo, name, sign, or map. All sections read were interesting and informative. The initial reaction to the book of "What the heck is this?" changed to "What a cool book!" Once readers become familiar with the notations, symbols, and organization of this book (very easy to do), they will be able to navigate anywhere within it.
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| This book will be of great interest to historians (both general and mining), historical archaeologists, and industrial archaeologists, as well as to local, state, and regional historical societies and museums. This book is recommended for county, college, and university libraries. It is a veritable gold mine (pun intended) of information. |
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Michael A. (Smoke) Pfeiffer |
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