Dubuque's Mines of Spain
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New Melleray Abbey

Dubuque's Mines of Spain, also, New Melleray Abbey. . , Dubuque's Mines of Spain , The city of Dubuque was named for Julien Dubuque, a swarthy French-Canadian who came to this area around 1785. Dubuque wooed Potosa, the daughter of Peosta, a Fox Indian chief whose village stood at the mouth of Catfish Creek, just below present-day Dubuque. In 1788 the Fox Indians gave Dubuque the right to work the lead mines in what is now Dubuque County. In 1796 Governor Carondelet of Upper Louisiana granted Dubuque the first and largest of three Spanish Land Grants in Iowa. This so-called Mines of Spain was a 9-mile wide tract adjoining the Mississippi between the Little Maquoketa and Tete de Mort Creek. Late each fall Dubuque left his Mines of Spain for St. Louis with a boatload of furs and lead. Unsuccessful in his mining venture, he fell heavily in debt to Auguste Chouteau and signed away the southern half of his Spanish Land Grant. On his death in 1810, the Chouteaus attempted to take over the land but the Fox Indians drove them away, claiming Dubuque was given the right to work the mines, not own them. This argument was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in 1853. , New Melleray Abbey , The nearby Trappist Abbey of our Lady of New Melleray (established 1849) traces its origin to the founding of a monastery at Citeaux, France in 1098. The members have been called monasteries in France. In 1830, Irish monks from the Abbey of Melleray in France founded Mount Melleray Abbey, Ireland. The need to expand led the Trappist to accept the invitation of Bishop Loras to establish New Melleray Monastery on 500 acres of land near Dubuque. Their original frame building was replaced by a Gothic style monastery of two wings which was occupied in 1875. This structure was completed following World War II when membership increased rapidly. The Trappist monks lead an austere life marked by silence and labor, by private prayer and community worship. Self-supporting, they own 3,200 acres of land devoted largely to farming and stock raising. Two New Melleray monks rose to high eminence -- one becoming the second Bishop of Dubuque and the other the first Bishop of Omaha.