La Saline, Missouri

La Saline is an abandoned village located in Beauvais Township in Sainte Genevieve County, Missouri. La Saline was located about six miles south of Sainte Genevieve, Missouri.

La Saline is French and refers to the two natural salt springs found in the area, which also gave name to the nearby creek and its tributaries called Saline Creek or Saline River. The French colonials knew Saline Creek as La Rivière de la Saline or La Petite Rivière de la Saline. The Spanish referred to the creek and its tributaries as Las Salinas. There were two settlements, La Grande Saline and La Petite Saline, with the former being the larger of the two. La Grande Saline was usually simply referred to as La Saline, and sometimes as Old Saline.

In 1541, Spanish explorer De Soto had sent Hernando de Silvera and Pedro Moreno from Capaha, with Indian guides, to obtain a supply of salt from a saline stream to the north, presumably the Saline Creek in Ste. Genevieve County.

Later, during the French colonial period, both French and Illinois Indians came to the site of La Saline to get their salt.

The settlement of the Saline River began in the early 1700s. In 1715, a small party of French were reported to be making salt at La Saline. The early encampment at La Saline was temporary, but over time became permanent. Two settlements grew up along the Saline: the Grande Saline, located near the mouth of the creek, and the Petite Saline, located at the upper end of the creek, along a tributary. The purpose of the settlement was the manufacturing of salt which was used for meat preservation, skin tanning, and fur processing. Water from the salt springs was boiled in ovens the French built; when the water boiled away, the salt remained. Spanish Colonial authorities also set up a post at La Saline in 1788. By 1800, French and Americans (Kentuckians) extracting salt from the Saline had set up four or five furnaces used for boiling off the salt for extraction, earning La Saline the name 'La Saline Ensanglantèe' (The Bloody Saline). These men were sending approximately thirty-five hundred barrels of salt to New Orleans each year. As well as producing salt, La Saline’s location along the Mississippi River meant that it served as a lead-shipping point. Lead from Mine la Motte, opened in the 1720s, came by animal or cart over ridge roads and then down the Saline River Valley to its mouth at La Saline to be loaded on Mississippi River boats.

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