Mine La Motte is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Madison County, Missouri, United States.

The French governor of Louisiana, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, failed to find silver, but succeeded in recruiting investors in the Company of the West, which was organized in 1717.

[7] The presence of lead, a critical ingredient for ammunition, attracted unusually early mining by French colonists in this otherwise remote interior region of the North American continent.

While dispatching workers and supervisors to the mines, La Mothe settled for a time in the Illinois Country east of the mid-Mississippi River, where the first French colonial villages were founded.

Due to the rich soils, they were quickly able to produce grain surpluses that were critical to the survival of the lower Louisiana colony.