Town names such as Lead Hill and Zinc attest to the importance of mining in Boone County. In the1850s small mines near Dubuque and Lead Hill used crude smelters to extract lead from rock. 

Mining began in earnest in the 1870s and it was hard work. Hand tools were used to dig pits in the ground or shafts into the sides of mountain. Tons of ore-bearing rock were processed on site or sent to distant smelters.  In 1886, 33 wagon-loads of ore (34,320 pounds) were shipped from the Bonanza Mine near Lead Hill down the White River to Batesville, and then on to St. Louis by rail.

A zinc “rush” began around 1899. Zinc was used as a pigment in paints, for battery electrodes, and for galvanizing iron. During World War I zinc prices soared only to fall at war’s end. Many mines were abandoned and towns shrunk or disappeared.