Passage II

Diving the Bonne Terre Mine

In 1962, one of the main producers of lead in the United States for almost a century, the Bonne Terre Mine in Bonne Terre, Missouri, was shut down due to falling profits. With equipment and tools still deep within the mine, the entrance was boarded up, the pumps that had kept the mine dry for decades turned off. (17) Now, the site is visited by thousands of scuba divers every year, those who looked for an unusual dive in what sometimes is considered as like an underwater mining museum.

The abandoned mine is shaped like a giant cone, with each of its five levels becoming successively narrower. A series of chutes, passageways, and ore dumps connects the levels. Sprawling beneath the four-square-mile town of Bonne Terre, however, the mine contains over eighty square miles of larger-than-life rooms and at least seventeen miles of tunnels. The cool water that fills the mine that is below the city of Bonne Terre is remarkably clean and clear.

[1] Divers enter the mine through a small outbuilding in Bonne Terre. [2] At the very bottom of the mine still stands the timekeeper’s shack, where workers clocked in at the beginning of a shift. [3] Inside, 500,000-watt floodlights gleam the dry top level of the mine, where walking tours are held. [4] The main diving docks are about a quarter mile within the mine, on the second level. [5] On guided tours, divers explore tunnels filled with ore carts, rock drills, dynamite boxes, and other artifacts from the mine’s possession. [6] Smooth walls and ceilings stretch for miles, and shimmer with deposits of cobalt, copper, calcium, and iron; pillars of unexcavated rock support the ceilings. [7] Near the shack, a rusting locomotive lies on its side. (28)

The site was explored by internationally renowned French diver Jacques Cousteau and has been featured in many travel and adventure publications. Divers from around the world visit the Bonne Terre Mine site keep swimming into a fascinating past.