Old Mines () is the name of an
unincorporated community and surrounding area in southeast
Missouri that were settled by
French colonists in the early 18th century when the area was part of the
Illinois Country of
New France. The early settlers came to
mine for
lead, and their descendants still inhabit the area where, through a combination of geographic and cultural isolation, they maintained a distinctive French culture well into the 20th century. As recently as the late 1980s there may have been a thousand native speakers of the region's
Missouri French dialect. This culturally distinct population has sometimes been referred to as "paw-paw French" and lives in an amorphous area in
Washington,
Jefferson, and
St. Francois counties roughly either side of a line from
Potosi to
De Soto. The village of Old Mines itself is in northeastern Washington County six miles north of Potosi.