First Lead Strike ~ Moffet and Sergeant Discovery Shaft
Landreth park original historic marker between Joplin Creek & Murphy Blvd
E.R. Moffet & William Sergeant hit the big discovery shaft that started the Joplin boom-town era in 1871
During the spring of 1870 J. Morris Young, superintendent of the Granby Company at Oronogo, offered a jackpot of $500 to the miner or company of miners who could mine the most lead from any one shaft during a four-month period. Elliot Moffet and John Sergeant won the prize. They used their winnings and leased a ten-acre tract of land from John C. Cox. In August of 1870 the two miners pitched a tent along the Joplin Creek valley. Moffet and Sergeant began burrowing downward looking for mineral riches. They diligently dug into the earth’s surface one shovel at a time, but their hopes and dreams were quickly evaporating in the hot August sun. Desperate, and now with zero operating funds, they decided to give it another try. Moffet and Sergeant took some blasting powder on credit and gave the earth one last jolt. After the dirt and rocks settled, the explosion revealed the tip of a substantial vein of lead. Not known to them at the time, their hard-headed persistence proved to be the defining moment in Joplin history.
In a couple of months, the Moffet and Sergeant discovery shaft reportedly yielded an astounding $60,000 payout. The two successful miners erected the first smelter near their mine. Word traveled fast as this extraordinary sum of money awoke miners, causing a populated tent city of laborers to emerge along Joplin Creek. Not all news was passed by word of mouth. On June 22, 1871 the Carthage Banner proclaimed, “There is a new town in Jasper County. Its name is Joplin and its located fourteen miles southwest of Carthage on the farm of John C. Cox. It has lead in unlimited quantities under it. Everybody out of employment ought to go there and dig. That is better than doing nothing and it may lead to fortune.”
The mining community quickly expanded and Banner continued to report on the success of the mining operations. In August 1871, the Weekly Banner stated, “surprised to find, instead of an expected four or five shafts with a dozen men working, five hundred men and plenty of shafts. Some miners were making $40 to $50 per day.” The mining bonanza had begun.
Moffet and Sergeant arrived during the summer of 1870 searching for that “lucky strike.” Their defining last blast was a life changing moment for them, and from their actions the primitive upstart mining camp would quickly grow into the community known as Joplin, Missouri. With a starting population of four thousand people, Joplin was incorporated into the state of Missouri on March 23, 1873. Dramatically, in less than three years after the Moffet and Sergeant strike, the former mining tent community had been solidified into an official municipality.
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