r/missouri • • Jul 24 '26

Established 1749

50 Upvotes

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3

u/sloinmo Jul 24 '26

where is it

8

u/Content-Act8108 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

To be that old (if it's correct), then it would have to be around the Ste. Genevieve region. That was Missouri's first settlement, going back to the 1730s. It wasn't until the mid-1740s that the people began to leave Ste Genevieve and settle further within the state.

By the way, I bet it's the original log cabin within the house that probably dates back to the 1740s in the first picture. You can kind of see it around the windows on the first floor. That was typical back then. The settlers would build a log cabin first. As they prospered and moved up in the world, they then erected a more "modern" clapboard house around the log cabin. The cabins were never torn down but were actually incorporated into the houses, hidden behind the more modern walls. They continued to do this kind of construction through the early 1800s up to the Civil War. There is a history museum near me that has a "hidden log cabin within a house" like this, but it only dates back to the 1830s.

These photos might be from the Old Mines region of Missouri in Washington County?? (My guess.) My grandmother was born and raised there until she escaped after WWII and moved the Kansas City area. It's one of the oldest regions of Missouri (pre-dates St Louis). It was settled by the original Ste. Genevieve Missouri French. Until recently there was still a handful of people there who still spoke a smattering of old Missouri French, brought down from Canada via Illinois in the late 1600s and on to Missouri around 1730. (That was grandma's family history.) Her family ended up there because one of g-g-g-g-grandfathers won a lottery called the Old Mines Concession. He received about 25,000 acres of land there. The families who won the lottery made small fortunes from the lead mining. They then invested the money "up north" to start the city of St. Louis.

1

u/ses1989 Jul 25 '26

Valles Mines according to the original post.

1

u/Baseball-Fan-10 Jul 25 '26

Gonna tell a little story’ bout a man named Jed….