ZINC

ZINC. Mineral also known during the 1800s as "drybone" or "blackjack." Prior to 1860 there existed no market for zinc ore. It was considered so worthless that streets in Hazel Green, Wisconsin, were paved with it.

MINING operations began in after 1887 when it was discovered that zinc combined with copper would create bronze. Often explorations for zinc took miners back to the same areas in which they had mined LEAD. Slag heaps of zinc, once an eyesore, became valuable property.

Rich deposits were discovered by J. F. Redman in a crevice forty feet wide. The [[AVENUE TOP MINE] on Julien Avenue was worked in the 1880s by the firm of Hird, Oatey and Watters. Another mine was opened at Center and Fourteenth STREETS. A boom in zinc mining occurred in 1899 with such mines as Bumcombe Hill and Big Dad Mine doing a majority share of the business.

The Dubuque Zinc Company began operating in 1893 with a capitalization of $100,000. In 1891 E.T. Goldthorpe shipped from four mines fifty carloads of ore on which freight charges amounted to $1,600. Zinc mining was a profitable enterprise as late as 1915 at the GOOSE HORN MINE along South Grandview.