Missouri
Buying Land in St. Francois County, Missouri
St. Francois County, seat Farmington, sits in the Ozark foothills about 65 miles south of St. Louis. Unincorporated land here appears to carry no county zoning, but the county's defining land-buying issue is historical: it's the heart of Missouri's Old Lead Belt, and an active EPA Superfund cleanup still touches thousands of properties and much of the Big River floodplain.
Zoning and building permits: an apparent no-zoning county, but confirm it yourself
Missouri's county zoning authority under RSMo Chapter 64 is opt-in, and nothing in St. Francois County's own public-facing materials points to it having opted in. There's no zoning map, zoning department, or zoning ordinance for unincorporated St. Francois County that surfaced in this research pass -- instead, the county issues a document explicitly named the "rural building permit" through the County Clerk's office (1 W. Liberty Street, Suite 300, Farmington; (573) 756-5411), which is the kind of administrative arrangement you'd expect in a county without zoning review standing between a landowner and a building project. That's suggestive rather than conclusive, though, and it's worth a direct call to the County Commission to confirm before you assume unincorporated land here carries no use restrictions at all.
What is clear is that the county's incorporated cities are a different jurisdiction entirely. Farmington -- the county seat and largest city, with its own Planning and Zoning division and published zoning maps -- Park Hills, Bonne Terre, Desloge, Leadwood, and Iron Mountain Lake all administer their own zoning and building codes. If the specific parcel you're looking at sits inside or near any of these city limits, route your zoning and permit questions to that city rather than the county; the answer for a lot two miles outside Farmington and a lot inside it can be very different even though both sit in the same county.
The Old Lead Belt: why this county has an active EPA cleanup
St. Francois County was the center of the Old Lead Belt, a lead-mining district that operated from 1742 to 1972 and, at its peak, produced more lead than almost anywhere else on earth -- output estimated at more than 9 million tons over the district's life. That mining left behind roughly 250 million tons of waste tailings and "chat" piled around the old mining towns of Bonne Terre, Desloge, Leadwood, and Flat River (now part of Park Hills). Wind and water erosion carried lead-contaminated material into soil, sediment, surface water, and groundwater across a wide area, and -- this is the detail that makes the site relevant decades later to an ordinary land buyer -- mine waste was historically used as residential fill dirt, spread on private driveways, mixed into road aggregate, and applied to public roads for winter traction, which means the contamination isn't confined to old industrial sites.
EPA's response is the Big River Mine Tailings/St. Joe Minerals Corp. Superfund site, and it's not a closed chapter: a 2018 consent decree with Doe Run Resources Corporation set up an $80 million-plus program to clean roughly 4,100 contaminated residential yards, source-area piles (Elvins, Leadwood, Bonne Terre East and West, Desloge) get annual operation-and-maintenance inspections (most recently December 2024), and a second five-year review published in February 2025 specifically recommended re-checking whether the residential soil lead cleanup standard still matches EPA's updated national guidance. A separate Engineering Evaluation/Cost Analysis covering contaminated sediment along the Big River itself was out for public comment through September 2025. Lead is the primary concern, and young children are the population EPA and DHSS flag as most at risk from soil and floodplain exposure -- reason enough to check a specific parcel's status before assuming a garden bed, a play area, or a well is clean simply because it's not inside an old mine footprint.
Floodplain, waterways, and the assessor/GIS picture
St. Francois County entered the National Flood Insurance Program in 1984, and the county's waterways -- the Big River, Flat River, Doe Run Creek, Wolf Creek, Owl Creek, and others -- have produced flooding at various points over the county's history. The county's floodplain administrator function sits within the Commission structure rather than a standalone planning office; as of this review the named administrator is Charles "Bob" Turner ((573) 431-6505, ext. 235), with several incorporated cities (Bonne Terre, Desloge, Farmington, Iron Mountain Lake, Leadwood, Park Hills) maintaining their own separate floodplain administrators for land inside city limits. Given the Big River's overlap with the Superfund site described above, confirm both a parcel's FEMA flood-zone status and its Superfund proximity before buying anything near that river corridor -- see our dedicated flood-zones page for St. Francois County for how those two questions interact.
For parcel research generally, the St. Francois County Assessor's Office (1 West Liberty Street, Suite 200, Farmington; (573) 756-1878) maintains the county's tax maps and GIS parcel data, and the Recorder of Deeds ((573) 756-2323, 1 North Washington Street) holds the deed and easement history you'll want pulled before closing on any parcel. The county's roughly 40,000 parcels skew rural and small-town rather than large-acreage row-crop farmland, and MU Extension in St. Francois County ((573) 756-0412) is a solid resource for soil testing, forage testing, and general agricultural guidance if your plans for the land include livestock, hay, or gardening -- worth pairing with a soil-lead check given the county's mining history if your specific parcel sits anywhere near an old mining town or the Big River corridor.
Who to Call Before Buying Land in St. Francois County
No planning or zoning department turned up for unincorporated St. Francois County in this research pass, so the County Commission and County Clerk are the practical first contacts for most land-use and building questions, with the Health Center handling septic and DNR handling wells at the state level. We could not confirm a dedicated GIS-department phone or email separate from the Assessor's Office -- use the phone numbers and websites above, or the county's general directory at sfcgov.org.
Other
St. Francois County Commission
General county governance and the first call to confirm whether any land-use rules apply to a specific unincorporated parcel.
Building & Permitting
St. Francois County Clerk (Rural Building Permits)
Rural building permit applications for unincorporated St. Francois County.
Environmental Health
St. Francois County Health Center -- Environmental Health
Septic permits, general environmental health questions, and referrals on Superfund-related soil concerns.
Septic / Onsite Wastewater
St. Francois County Health Center -- Environmental Health
OWTS (septic) construction permits and required soil evaluations.
Wells / Private Water
Missouri Department of Natural Resources -- Water Protection Program
Private well construction rules and certified well-contractor requirements statewide, including St. Francois County.
Floodplain / Stormwater
St. Francois County Floodplain Administrator
FEMA flood-zone questions and floodplain development permits for unincorporated St. Francois County.
Environmental Health
US EPA Region 7 -- Big River Mine Tailings/St. Joe Minerals Corp. Superfund Site
Cleanup status, site maps, and lead-contamination questions for a specific parcel near the Big River or the county's old mining towns.
Assessor / Property Tax
St. Francois County Assessor
Assessed value, GIS/tax maps, and property tax questions for a specific parcel.
Recorder / Clerk / Land Records
St. Francois County Recorder of Deeds
Recorded deed, easement, and plat history for a specific parcel.
Agricultural Extension
MU Extension in St. Francois County
Soil and forage testing, agricultural guidance, and 4-H/youth livestock programs.
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Get local guidanceTopics Specific to St. Francois County
Sources
- Saint Francois County (official site) — St. Francois County, Missouri Government (accessed 2026-09)
- St. Francois County Commission — St. Francois County, Missouri Government (accessed 2026-09)
- Forms & Permits — St. Francois County, Missouri Government (accessed 2026-09)
- (SFC-RURAL-BUILDING-PERMIT) — St. Francois County, Missouri Government (accessed 2026-09)
- St. Francois County Floodplain — St. Francois County, Missouri Government (accessed 2026-09)
- Local Floodplain Administrators — St. Francois County, Missouri Government (accessed 2026-09)
- Environmental Health — St. Francois County Health Center (accessed 2026-09)
- St. Francois County Assessor — St. Francois County, Missouri Government (accessed 2026-09)
- St. Francois County Recorder of Deeds — St. Francois County, Missouri Government (accessed 2026-09)
- MU Extension in St. Francois County — University of Missouri Extension (accessed 2026-09)
- BIG RIVER MINE TAILINGS/ST. JOE MINERALS CORP. -- Superfund Site Profile — US Environmental Protection Agency (accessed 2026-09)
- Superfund National Priorities List (NPL) Sites Near Big River and Floodplain -- Fact Sheet, September 2021 — US Environmental Protection Agency (accessed 2026-09)
- Case Summary: Big River Superfund Site $80 Million Settlement for Lead Contamination Cleanup — US Environmental Protection Agency (accessed 2026-09)
- On-site Septic Systems and Subdivisions — Missouri Department of Natural Resources (accessed 2026-09)
- St. Francois County, Missouri — Wikipedia (accessed 2026-09)
- St. Francois County, Missouri Population 2026 — World Population Review (accessed 2026-09)
Last reviewed 2026-09