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Fluorspar Mines at St. Lawrence
St. Lawrence Miner's Memorial Museum
St. Lawrence , Newfoundland and Labrador

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   St. Lawrence is a
community on the Southeast
Coast of the Burin Peninsula.
Until the early 1930s, the
people of the area survived
through a combination of
inshore fishing, small-scale
farming, and other
traditional activities. In
1929, a tidal wave devastated

the area. 27 people lost
their lives, and many along
the coast lost their homes,
boats, stages, and supplies.
This added greatly to the
hardship already inflicted by
the Great Depression and the
collapse of the saltfish
trade. In 1931, entrepreneur
Walter Seibert from New York

USA offered the people some
hope when he visited the town
to inspect fluorspar deposits
he had purchased from a St.
John’s businessman in 1929.
   At the time of its
discovery, the St. Lawrence
mineral deposits were
described as the largest
known fluorspar deposit in

North America. In 1933, the
men of St. Lawrence began the
task of extracting and
shipping the ore for
Seibert's company, and the
first fluorspar vein mined
was at Black Duck. The St.
Lawrence Corporation of
Newfoundland was commonly
known as 'The Corporation'.

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