Billion Gallon Lake Restaurant

Billion Gallon Lake Restaurant
Bonne Terre Mine, Bonne Terre
Bonne Terre Mine
185 Park Avenue
Bonne Terre, MO 63628
888-843-3483
www.bonneterremine.com

Do you love to scuba dive? Have you ever been diving in an underground lake? Bonne Terre Mine is where you can “Dive to the Center of the Earth.” It is a national historic site and the world’s largest freshwater dive resort, featuring a seemingly endless underground world, frozen in time.
The mine is a giant hole underneath the town of Bonne Terre, hacked out of solid rock over 101 years ago by the St. Joseph Lead Company. Back in the day, the mine’s deepest reaches were not underwater. In 1962, the mine shut down and turned off the pumps, and groundwater began pouring in. These days, mine owners Doug and Catherine maintain a constant water level, providing divers with access to their unique underwater vision with water as clear as a swimming pool.
Water conditions remain constant with a more than 100-foot visibility. And there is so much to see from when the place was a functioning mine: shovels, drills, ladders, ore carts, scaffolding, staircases, pillars, slurry pipes, the famed elevator shaft, and much more. The underwater ghost town features pillars, shafts, archways, and walls and ceilings that stretch for miles in all directions. It’s a sprawling maze lit with 500,000 watts of high-powered stadium lighting resulting in electric-blue water.
There are lots of planned trails numbered sequentially, and every group of divers is assigned a guide and a safety diver. The dives become more advanced with additional swim-throughs and archways to navigate as the numbers get larger.
Bonne Terre Mine is without a doubt one of the most unusual, beautiful, and relaxing full-service dive resorts anywhere.

As featured in Missouri Back Road Restaurant Recipes

See also : Billion Gallon Lake Restaurant