Confederate Mine Discovered in Ozark Foothills

Aug.13, 2017
Camdenton, MO
Imagine shopping at your local Walmart. When you get back to your car you see your metal detector and think about the rumors that this Walmart may in fact sit on an abandoned mine shaft.
That is exactly what happened with local resident and metal detector enthusiast Dewey Anderson.
“I happened to be just a wondering’ around on the hill when my detector let out all sorts of “bleeps”. I dug a little ways until I came to a rusted buckle. I scrubbed it a little and low and behold it had the initials C.S.A. stamped on it. I continued to map the area out more and found other items such as grapeshot, pick axes, and old lanterns. I was excited.”
Mr. Anderson had found remnants of the Confederacy, the controversial Southern army of the American Civil War. Though Anderson is known as a local historian in the Lake of the Ozarks region he could not understand how Confederate items managed to appear in a place where very little war activity had transpired. The answer came from a very surprising source.
“I happened to be scrolling through some posts in a metal detecting page that I am a part of on Facebook when I stumbled upon the image of the buckle that Anderson had found. I remembered some documents I had skimmed over in our transcripts department that might shed some light on this mystery.” Prof. Bueaford J. Soddenheimer of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, VA immediately got in touch with the amateur Ozark treasure hunter.
“The answer Prof. Soddenheimer gave me is that this may in fact be a lost coal mine operated by Sterling Price himself!” exclaimed a very animated Anderson.
Sterling Price is a name that you may not know as it doesn’t strike a chord with most Americans as such Civil War generals like Ulysses S. Grant, Stonewall Jackson, or Robert E. Lee but he served a pivotal role in the western theater of the war nonetheless. Price, a Mexican-American War hero and former Missouri governor entered the Confederacy upon receiving threats from Union Brigadier General, Nathaniel Lyon, against his beloved state, thereby entering Missouri into the heated war. However, Prof. Soddenheimer may have found some interesting unknown history with Anderson’s discovery.
“Upon Gen. Price’s win against Gen. Lyon at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek near Springfield, MO. he began to travel north toward Lexington, MO. I came across evidence that he may have made a brief stop near what is now Camdenton, MO. between August 10, 1861 and Sept. 12, 1861. Confederate President, Jefferson Davis himself, issued an order to Price to locate a coal source to supply troops in Missouri, Arkansas, northern Louisiana, and western Tennessee. After doing some research the mineral rich hills of the Ozarks would have been the perfect spot to set up a convenient and hasty mining operation. However, after many losses Price would up abandoning his beloved state and very possibly the mine.”
This leaves one question. If this is Price’s mine what will be done with it in a nation where the Confederacy has lately been under fire in today’s controversy.
“I’m in talks with the land owners, city officials, the Conservation Department, and even the National Park System. I just hope that this will be excavated and used as a tool to educate our youngsters. Maybe we can store statues of Davis and Lee in the mine to keep em’ safe from all the ignorant folks? I don’t know. I’m excited but I just don’t know.”
Anderson looks on hopeful. Someday maybe we’ll know more of the history that is beneath our feet in the Missouri Ozarks.