Desloge family

The Desloge family (/dəˈloʊʒ/)[1] is a French American family centered mostly in Missouri and especially at St. Louis,[2] that rose to wealth through international commerce, sugar refining, oil drilling, fur trading, mineral mining, saw milling, manufacturing, railroads, real estate, and riverboats. The family has funded hospitals and donated large tracts of land for public parks and conservation.[3]

History

The family's progenitor was Firmin René Desloge, a descendant of French nobility[4][5] who emigrated to Missouri in 1823 to join his uncle Jean Ferdinand Rozier who had arrived in Missouri in 1810 with Rozier's business partner John James Audubon.[5][6][7]

The family's businesses in lead and mercantile in Missouri date from around 1824, when Firmin Rene Desloge built his own smelting furnace as an extension of his Potosi, Missouri, mercantile business. They grew to include the Missouri Lead Mining and Smelting Company in 1874 and the Desloge Lead Company in 1876, inclusively one of the largest and oldest lead mining companies in America.[8][9]

The family moved to St. Louis in 1861, at the outset of the American Civil War, after various attacks at Potosi, Bonne Terre and upon the family lead mining works by both Federal and Confederate armies who sought lead for weapons.

The main line and connections of the Mississippi River & Bonne Terre Railway, built to serve lead mines in southeastern Missouri

Firmin Rene Desloge's son, Firmin V. Desloge II, expanded mining operations and expanded management to Bonne Terre, Missouri; a charter was requested and granted to the Missouri Lead and Smelting Company on June 5, 1874. The corporate name was later changed to "The Desloge Lead Company" on February 21, 1876. Three shafts were sunk during 1876 and 1877 and a new mill was built. In 1886, a fire destroyed the concentrating mill plant and damaged the rest of surface plant of the Desloge Lead Company.[10] Rather than rebuild, Desloge II sold the firm to the St. Joseph Lead Company. In 1887, the land was cleared and company houses for his staff were constructed at the location which became known as Deslogetown, present day Desloge, Missouri.[8] Desloge II then founded a new company, the Desloge Consolidated Lead Company.[11][12]

To serve his mines, Desloge II also built the first railroads to penetrate the disseminated lead field of St. Francois County, Missouri: the Desloge Railway, the Mississippi River and Bonne Terre Railway[13] and then the Valley Railroad. Desloge II was also involved with the development of the Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad (aka the Iron Mountain Railroad) from St. Louis, Missouri, to Texarkana, Arkansas. The St. Joseph Lead Company built a 13.5-mile narrow gauge railroad from the mines to a junction with the Iron Mountain Railroad at Summit in Washington County.[14] St. Joe paid two-thirds of the construction costs; the Desloge Company the rest.

Around 1916, the Desloge Consolidated Lead Company moved its corporate offices from Desloge, Missouri, to the Rialto Building in downtown St. Louis. While "St. Louis, with its French ancestry, has been noted as a fur capital, more money passed through St. Louis as a result of the lead business in Missouri than did because of the fur business," wrote Doe Run Company CEO Jeffry Zelm.[15] The oldest St. Louis-based lead family is Desloge.[16]

In 1922, Desloge II's grandson Louis Desloge (from Jules Desloge) founded Watlow — the name alludes to low-watt heaters to replace steam heat — to manufacture electric heating elements for the shoe industry. In 2011, Watlow, still a Desloge family business, employed 2,000 employees in 13 factories in the United States, Mexico, Europe and Asia; had sales offices in 16 countries; and distributed globally.

Desloge II's son, Joseph Desloge, designed an industry-specialty electric fuse that would "kill the arc" and founded Killark Electric in 1913. Joseph Desloge also owned Minerva Oil, (a confusing misnomer as it was primarily mining zinc and fluorspar); and founded Louisiana Manufacturing Company and Atlas Manufacturing Company; and fluorspar mining in southeastern Illinois. Joseph Desloge's son Joseph Jr. owned uranium mines near Moab, Utah, which he and his partner sold to General Electric; he also made money in natural gas exploration in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania.[17]

The Desloge family entertained Russian ballerinas and Shakespearean actors, King Hussein of Jordan, the archduke of Austria (giving him brief shelter after he was deposed by the Nazis),[18] and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.[19]

Desloge II's new company operated until 1929, when it was sold to the St. Joe Lead Company for $18,000,000 ($268,011,628 today[20]). "With the absorption of the Desloge concern by the St. Joseph Lead Company, one of the oldest mining companies of the district goes out of existence as a company."[21][22][23] The sale made the family worth more than $52 million[24] alongside W. K. Vanderbilt ($52 million) and A. W. Mellon ($50 million), but only half as wealthy as the Astors ($100 million)[25] Desloge II died that same year, one of the wealthiest men in the world.[25]

Louis Fusz married Desloge II's daughter Josephine, and the Fusz family played several key roles in the ownership and management of the Desloge Consolidated Lead Company. Fusz was president of Regina Flour Mill Co., and of Desloge Consolidated Lead Co. The Fusz name in St. Louis today is automobiles. In 2018, after 65 years, the Lou Fusz Automotive Network consists of 17 car dealerships with 15 automotive franchises.

Theodore (Ted) Desloge Jr was a founding partner in and president of Park 'N Fly, established in 1967[26] as the first[27] and today the nation's leading off-airport parking company,[28] Inc.; and founder of Janna Medical Systems.

Society

Three members of the Desloge family have been "Queen of Love and Beauty" at the Veiled Prophet Ball, a debutante ball held in December in St. Louis: Anne Kennett Farrar Desloge (daughter of Joseph Desloge, Sr.) in 1946, her cousin and goddaughter Diane Waring Desloge (daughter of William L. Desloge) in 1962,[29] and Katherine Falk Desloge (daughter of Stephen F. Desloge) in 2014.[30][31]

Alleged Kennedy connection

Durie Malcolm, wife of Firmin V. Desloge IV, was long rumored to have been briefly married to John F. Kennedy in 1947 in Palm Beach, Florida. No documentation of a marriage between the two is on file with the county, which some have attributed to the Kennedy family having it removed from the county records.[32][33] In 1998, Malcolm's sister-in-law, Mrs. William L. Desloge, endorsed the story: "Of course it's true, we were all there at the parties in Palm Beach with them."[34]

Philanthropy

The 1932 bequest of Desloge II funded the Firmin Desloge Hospital, today known as St. Louis University Hospital;[35] a separate bequest one year later from his wife, Lydia Desloge, built a Desloge Chapel at the hospital.[36] Desloge II willed his original 47 acres of his hand-dug pits of the original lead mining operations and the deeply rutted wagon tracks on a property in Washington County. The family then donated this land for a park, today named Firmin Desloge Park, and dedicated it to the mining families in the area.[37]

In 1955, Joseph Desloge donated to the state of Missouri some 2,400 acres of land acquired over 17 years in Reynolds County.[38] The land, which included a shut-in region and more than two miles of river frontage, today composes the bulk of Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park.[39] He continued donating money to improve the park.[40] Desloge also donated land for Sunset Park in north St. Louis County on the Missouri River; and sold to St. Louis County the 2,300-acre Pelican Island in the middle of the Missouri River (for just $91 an acre[41]) as a nature preserve.[42]

References
    1. The article is the condensed version of 900-page historical monograph supported by materials at historical societies, over 230 bibliographic sources under ISBN, with copyright and Library of Congress application
    2. Stevens, Walter B. St. Louis The Fourth City 1764–1911. 2 vols. St. Louis-Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1909 and 1911.
    3. History of Southeast Missouri. Robert Sidney Douglass, Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago and New York, 1912
    4. "Descendance de Joseph-Gilles Desloge." 2 pp. typewritten, n.d. Translated by Rosemary T. Power. Missouri Historical Society Archives, Joseph Desloge Collection
    5. Huger, Lucie Furstenberg. The Desloge Family in America. St. Louis: Nordman Printing Co., 1959
    6. Sharpe, Mary Rozier and James, Louis, Between the Gabouri, History of the Rozier Family, 1981
    7. Arthur, Stanley Clisy. Audubon: An Intimate Life of the American Woodsman, 1937
    8. Desloge Consolidated Lead Company records at Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, MO
    9. Thomas A. Rickards. A History of American Mining, Maple Press Co., New York, 1937
    10. Bouchard, W. L., A Trip Through Bonne Terre Mines and Surface Operations, published by The Lead Belt News, Flat River, St. Francois Co. MO, Fri. March 4, 1949.
    11. HISTORY OF THE LEAD BELT OF ST. FRANCOIS COUNTY MISSOURI By A. J. Norwine (1924)
    12. History of St. Joe Lead Company http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mostfran/mine_history/stjoe_history.htm
    13. Sullivan, John J., History of St. Joe and Desloge Railway and Missouri River and Bonne Terre Railroad, handwritten, Railroads Collection, Desloge Railway, Missouri Historical Society archives
    14. Missouri Short Line Railroad
    15. McHenry, Robert E. "Chat Dumps of The Missouri Lead Belt". Missing or empty |url= (help)
    16. "The History of the Desloge Family in America", by Christopher Desloge, lulu.com (2013). Yale University professor and Director of French American history on the American Frontier Jay Gitlin (Faculty: Environmental History at Yale Archived 2012-01-27 at the Wayback Machine) called "The History of the Desloge Family in America" "one of the most serious and major contributions on the subject…a foundation of work for thousands of academics and historians", in his foreword to 2012 "Desloge Chronicles". Missouri History Museum, Research and Reference Building, St. Louis, Missouri.
    17. Joseph Desloge Jr., Passport To Manhood, 1995, p102
    18. St. Louis Magazine, article "The Desloge Family: Getting the Lead Out" By Jeannette Cooperman August 20, 2015, http://www.stlmag.com/news/the-desloge-family/
    19. Missouri Historical Society, William L. Desloge, President
    20. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved January 1, 2020.
    21. May 31, 1929 The Lead Belt News
    22. McHenry, Robert E. Chat Dumps of The Missouri Lead Belt, St Francois County. With an Illustrated History of the Lead Companies that Built Them, Flat River, Bonne Terre, Desloge, River Mines, Leadwood, Elvins, Leadington, self-published, 2006.
    23. Thompson, Henry C. Our Lead Belt Heritage. Flat River, Mo., 1955
    24. Probated will of Lydia Desloge, source Farmington (Missouri) Press, December 1932
    25. List of the Richest Men in the World, New York Times, May 20, 1923, accessed by ProQuest Historical Newspapers, via St. Louis County Library.
    26. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-02-16. Retrieved 2016-02-14.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
    27. oldest 1967
    28. Park ‘N Fly has been operating for nearly 50 years in 14 markets, with 16 facilities, and 80 affiliate locations compared to the second largest Parking Company of America has only 13. https://www.nytimes.com/fodors/top/features/travel/destinations/unitedstates/georgia/atlanta/fdrs_feat_15_7.html?n=Top%2FFeatures%2FTravel%2FDestinations%2FUnited+States%2FGeorgia%2FAtlanta
    29. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8248756/diane_desloge_veiled_prophet_queen
    30. https://townandstyle.com/the-court-veiled-prophet-ball
    31. https://www.stlouis.style/stylish-parties/vp-ball-2014
    32. Dark Side of Cemelot, Seymour Hersh, Little Brown, 1998
    33. The Smoking Gun http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/tale-jacks-first-wife
    34. History of the Desloge Family in America, Christopher D Desloge, p. 212, lulu press, 2013, accessed at the Missouri History Museum, 2017
    35. "The Southeast Missourian - Google News Archive Search". Retrieved 2 August 2015.
    36. Missouri History Museum, fully executed bequest documents in the possession of the Missouri Historical Society Archives, St. Louis, MO, Joseph Desloge Collection, http://www.mohistory.org/files/archives_guides/Guide_to_the_Archival_Collections_A-Z.pdf (Item A0380)"legal contracts concerning the building and endowment of the Firmin Desloge Hospital"
    37. Christopher Desloge, Desloge Chronicles, lulu, 2010 pp 757
    38. Missouri History Museum, http://collections.mohistory.org/resourceMgr/103225.html
    39. http://www.missouri-vacations.com/johnson's-shutins-state-park/
    40. "Johnson Shutins, Auctioneers, and Joe Desloge. - St. Louis Auctions, St. Louis AuctioneerAuction St. Louis". auctionstlouis.com. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
    41. Joseph Desloge, Jr. Passport To Manhood, 1995, p.18 & 103
    42. Christopher Desloge, Desloge Chronicles - Tale of Two Continents, lulu, 2010, pp 758
    • Southeast Missouri Mining and Milling. Doe Run Company. 2004
    • Potosi (Missouri) Historical Society

    St. Louis Magazine, The Desloge Family, Aug, 20, 2015 http://www.stlmag.com/news/the-desloge-family/

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