St. Lawrence Memorial Miners Museum

St. Lawrence is a community on the Southeast Coast of the Burin Peninsula. Until the early 1930’s, 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 asses 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 discover, 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’.