Potosi is a city in Washington County, Missouri, United States. Potosi is seventy-two miles southwest of St. Louis. The population was 2,538 as of the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Washington County.[4]
Located in the Lead Belt, the city was founded in 1763 by French colonists as Mine à Breton or Mine au Breton. After the United States acquired this area, American Moses Austin renamed the community for the Bolivian silver-mining city of Potosí. He was involved in lead mining.[5]
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 2.33 square miles (6.03 km2), all land.[6]
Potosi is located in the Lead Belt region of Missouri; as such, it has mining operations in the area. It is also geographically considered part of the St. Francois Mountain Range, meaning it has hilly terrain typical of the region.
The city is within proximity to many nature areas, including Mark Twain National Forest and Washington State Park.
A lead mining settlement at this spot, "Mine à Breton" or Mine au Breton, was founded between 1760 and 1780 by Francis Azor, of Brittany, France. Moses Austin came here in 1798 with his family, including his son Stephen F. Austin. Moses obtained a grant of 7,153 arpents of land from the Spanish Empire and started large-scale mining operations, building his town to support it. Moses named the town after Potosí in Bolivia, which was famous for its vast silver mines. Austin's tomb and the foundation of his home Durham Hall can still be seen. Another mining entrepreneur in Potosi at the time of Moses Austin was James Bryan. Firmin Rene Desloge, who emigrated from Nantes, France in 1822 as the progenitor of the Desloge Family in America, settled in Potosi and established a mercantile, distillery, fur trading and lead smelting business. The Desloge lead mining business, Desloge Lead Company (later Desloge Consolidated Lead Company) was eventually relocated to Bonne Terre, and eventually Desloge, by Firmin V. Desloge.[9][10]
Potosi was designated county seat in 1814.[11]
Potosi is also home to the oldest standing Presbyterian church west of the Mississippi River. It is located on West Breton Street, also home to the graveyard that contains the tomb of Moses Austin and his wife Maria Brown Austin.[12]
The Potosi Correctional Center, which opened in 1989, housed Missouri's death row until 2005. The Potosi Center conducted all but one of the sixty-two Missouri executions between 1989 and 2005, when executions were moved to the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre.[13]
The George Cresswell Furnace, Palmer Historic Mining District, Washington County Courthouse, and Washington State Park CCC Historic District are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[14][15]
As of the census[17] of 2010, there were 2,660 people, 1,114 households, and 657 families living in the city. The population density was 1,141.6 in