1. The Land
2. Mining
3. Badger Holes and Sucker Holes
4. Lead Mineral
5. Mineral Point
6. Merry Christmas Mine Prairie Signs
7. Log Furnace or Open Roasting Oven

1. The Land

Southwestern Wisconsin stands in the Driftless Area, a 12,000-square-mile area bypassed by the glaciers of the last great ice age. The Upper Mississippi Valley lead and zinc district covers 1,776 square miles within the Driftless Area. Centuries of weathering and erosion exposed the lead, zinc and copper ore deposits in cracks and crevices in the limestone bedrock.

The trail to the right leads to station 2.

2. Mining

As early as the mid-17th century, Native Americans and French fur traders mined and smelted some lead in southwest Wisconsin. American miners discovered lead in the late 1820s and scores of frontiersmen and adventurers from Missouri and southern Illinois came to exploit shallow surface deposits of mineral.

In the 1830s immigrant copper and tin miners came from Cornwall, England, fleeing industrial poverty and hunger at home. The Cornish, some of the best hard rock miners in the world, arrived with knowledge accumulated through two centuries of experience at deep shaft mining in their homeland.

The lead mining boom lasted from 1827 to 1849 when many miners went to California for the Gold Rush. The second half of the nineteenth century saw the rise of zinc mining in Mineral Point. Cornish miners were joined by Irish, German, and Italian laborers in the zinc mines.

3. Badger Holes and Sucker Holes

On this hillside, more than 100 small filled shafts and "sucker holes" dot the landscape. The early American miners often threw logs, brush or sod over such holes to use as shelter. These crude shelters, known as badger holes, gave Wisconsin its nickname — the Badger State.

Miners located likely ore prospects by carefully examining surface conditions:
1) They looked for small lumps of ore on the
surface.
2) They probed the ground to remove samples for study.
3) They looked for lead plant (Amorpha canescens). Lead plant grows an uncommonly deep tap root, indicating a vertical crevice in the bedrock which might contain mineral. Aspen groves were also thought to indicate vertical crevices.
4) They used dowsing or divining rods.

4. Lead Mineral

The 1881 History of Iowa County stated, "Wisconsin gives but one form of lead ore in quantity: sulphide of lead, also called galena, which when free from foreign admixtures, shows over 86% of pure lead mixed with sulphur."

Once brought to the surface, ore was sorted from rock, washed, and finally smelted. The lead was then poured into ingots called pigs, each weighing about 70 pounds. Lead was used in the manufacture of pewter, printers' type, weights, shot, and paint.

5. Mineral Point

In 1827 Stephen Taylor described the discovery of lead in Mineral Point, "Mineral Point — a piece of land elevated about 200 feet, narrowing and descending to a point, situated in the midst of a valley, as it were — a ravine bounding the same both eastward and westward, through which tributaries of the Pekatonica River flow, uniting in a wider valley to the southward. It was upon this point that the 'leads were struck' the fame of which spread and so quickly became the center of attraction, the miners flocking to them from every quarter. . . "

Mining made Mineral Point an important commercial center by the mid-1830s. It was the original county seat of Iowa County and the location of one of the first land offices in Wisconsin Territory.

6. Merry Christmas Mine Prarie Sign

". . . I started with surprise and delight. I was in the midst of a prairie! A world of grass and flowers stretched around me, rising and falling in gentle undulations, as if an enchanter had struck the ocean swell, and it was at rest forever . . . You will scarcely credit the profusion of flowers upon these prairies. We passed whole acres of blossoms all bearing one hue, as purple, perhaps, or masses of yellow or rose; and then again a carpet of every color intermixed, or narrow bands, as if a rainbow had fallen upon the verdant slopes. When the sun flooded this Mosaic floor with light, and the summer breeze stirred among their leaves the iridescent glow was beautiful and wondrous beyond anything I had ever conceived . . ." (From Eliza Steele, Summer Journey in the West, 1840.)

The trail to the left of the sign leads to stations 7, 8 and 9. The trails to the right of the sign lead back to the Pendarvis parking lot.

7. Log Furnace or Open Roasting Ovem

This reproduction of an early type of open smelter was used to heat lead ore to its melting point and to burn off impurities. An open roasting hearth, consisting of a stone-lined hopper dug into the hillside, was filled with cordwood and mineral and stoked for about 24 hours at a time to extract approximately 40 percent of the metal contained in the ore. The melted lead ran out of the opening in the front of the furnace and was deposited into a shallow, bowl-shaped mold dug into the surface of the ground. The cast lead, called a plat, consisted of lead and some impurities. After the furnace ash cooled, it was reheated in a reflecting hearth to roast an additional 10 to 15 percent more lead from the slag. The introduction of cupola furnaces in the late 1830s raised efficiency to 70 to 80 percent of the metal contained in the ore.