Before Potosi was Born

Ten thousand years ago, there was a period in our history called the ice age. At that time, huge glaciers, large pieces of air, water, rock, and ice, traveled over the land surfaces of the continent. Our area was missed by those glaciers.

Back in the early 1800's, there were no buildings here, only the beauties of nature. During the ice age, glaciers slid through many other areas and flattened the land, but this part was not touched. For some reason, the glaciers went around us leaving rolling hills and bluffs along a mighty river, the Mississippi River, instead of the flat, plains in Iowa. This was the home of the Native Americans then. The Winnebago tribe and the Kickapoo Indians both called this area their home. This peaceful life was soon to change though, with the arrival of the European settlers who were ready to make this new land, their home!

A Winnebago Chief

In 1644, a French man, named Nicholas Perrot was born. He was born to explore, and in1685, he began to explore Wisconsin and other areas nearby. He went all the way from Green Bay to Dubuque, and even farther along the Mississippi. It is documented that he visited Snake Cave in 1690. He was one of the first people to discover deposits of mineral ore from lead. Perrot was a man of peace and he made friends with the Fox Indians of the area. They gave him the right to mine and investigate the sources of lead ore he could find. They became known as the "Perrot Mines". He was told that he could mine for lead, but he was not considered the owner of the mines.

European Settlers Find a New Land

In 1788, a French Canadian man named Julien Dubuque came to this area as a trapper, but while he was here, he found another treasure. That treasure was LEAD. Lead was something of great value back then. It was used for many things, and people who could find it hidden in the rocks could become very rich. Julien Dubuque was given permission by the Fox Indians to open some lead mines in the area. He got a grant from the Spanish in 1796, and his "Mines of Spain" made him a wealthy man. In 1810, when Julien Dubuque died the Native Americans decided that they wanted the land and mines back.

Julien Dubuque and his Native American wife, Potosa

Map of Dubuque area mines

In 1753, the British became unhappy with the French and Spanish people for claiming lands that they felt belonged to them. So, the French began building forts along the rivers. The French and Indian War began and lasted until 1763. In the treaty that was signed at the end of the war, Great Britain was given all of the land east of the Mississippi in North America. The Native Americans had helped the French, who had now lost their battle for the land.

The Native Americans had lived quite comfortably in this area for a long time, but as the settlers continued to come here problems continued to brew. The European settlers wanted the land that the Native Americans had always called home. In 1804, the Native Americans were tricked into signing an agreement, called a treaty, that the white men had made. The Native Americans really didn't understand what this Treaty of 1804 said, but the white men convinced them to sign it. The treaty was a promise that the Native Americans would move off of any land east of the Mississippi in exchange for a few little presents. When the white settlers came and demanded the land, the Indians had to move west. Once the Native Americans figured out what they had been tricked into signing, they became very angry with the settlers.

Many times the Native Americans were tricked into agreeing to things they didn't understand.

The Native Americans were not willing to give up. They had heard that the British were coming to help them get the land back, so they began to now help the British. Soon the War of 1812 broke out with the Native Americans fighting with the British to take the land away from the settlers. This made the settlers very angry with the Native Americans! The British, however, lost their fight, and because of the treaty of 1804, the Native Americans lost their lands as well.

. The Arrival of the St. John Family

Word spread to many places that lead and wealth had been found by Julien Dubuque in a place near the Mississippi River, and soon other people came to the new world to try to find some of that wealth. In 1825, a man named John St. John and his two sons, Willis and Andrew, came to mine for the lead that had been found by Julien Dubuque.

After a couple of years of working in the Galena area, Willis St. John decided he was ready for an adventure. He left his father and brother to traveled north. He found a beautiful area with Native Americans who were kind to him. He saw them wearing shiny rocks around their necks, and he quickly knew that they had found lead. The Indians showed him the cave where the lead had been found, and Willis St. John knew he had found a treasure all his own. He went back home to tell his family and friends, and knew that some day he would come back to this spot next to the mighty Mississippi River!

More Trouble Again

In 1827, there was another war called the Winnebago War. This was led by the Winnebago tribe and their chief, Chief Red Bird. He was angry that their people had been forced off of their lands and they were not willing to accept the Treaty of 1804. They decided to fight for their land. They fired upon white settlers near Prairie du Chein, and other settlers along the Mississippi, and they even struck the mines in Galena. Soldiers were rushed in to help the white settlers and the war ended in August of 1828 with the Winnebago Indians signing a treaty agreeing to give up their lands.

Chief Red Bird

Then in 1828, a group of Native Americans from the Fox and Sauk tribes ran into trouble with the white settlers once again. They had left their settlements to go out for a winter hunt. When they came back, they found a group of white settlers living in their homes! Because of the treaty of 1804, the Native Americans were told that they had to move. This really made the Indians mad. One Indian chief named Keokuk said that they should move to keep things peaceful, but another chief named Blackhawk said that they shouldn't be forced to leave their homes. Blackhawk believed that the British would come to help him in his fight against the settlers. The British did not come though. The Winnebago Indians agreed to help him until they were told that the governor of Illinois said that they either had to leave or he would send in the army. In 1831, Blackhawk turned back and began to lead his people toward Iowa.

It was a very hard winter though, and the Native Americans had moved on to land that wasn't very rich. Their crops had failed and they were starving. Blackhawk decided to send some of his best messengers to their old home land, to ask the settlers if they could please have some food, and to cross over into Wisconsin to seek help from the Winnebago Indians. The white settlers saw the Indians riding toward them and shot and killed them. They had not understood what it was the Native Americans were coming to ask. Now, Black Hawk was really angry! This was the beginning of The Blackhawk War. The war was very short. It began in in April of 1832 and ended in August of 1832, with Blackhawk being captured at the Battle of Bad Axe near Prairie du Chein. A treaty was signed by the Fox, Sauk, and Winnebago Indians, and they agreed to surrender their land for $270,000, and moved west into Iowa. Blackhawk was taken prisoner, and the Native Americans continued to move toward the West.

Sauk Chief Black Hawk

Fox Chief Keokuk and his son

Map of the area of the Black Hawk War

Statue of Black Hawk in Oregon, Illinois

Willis St. John Returns

Once things had settled down a bit, Willis St. John was ready to travel once again. He had fought in the Blackhawk War, but in 1832, after the war had ended, Willis St. John decided to come back to the cave he had found. He brought with him a friend, Issac Whitaker, and his wife. Issac's wife was the first white woman to ever live here. They quickly went back to the cave, and Willis St. John claimed it as his own. The two men were ready to go to work to start mining lead. They entered the cave, but they found more than lead. They found lots and lots of SNAKES! Before they could begin mining, they had to fumigate the cave to get rid of them. Now they had a name for the cave, SNAKE CAVE!

A Settlement Begins

Word traveled that there was wealth to be found in this area, and soon miners began to come to join Willis St. John. By 1835, there were miners' camps beginning to form. Miners' camps were places where many of the lead miners stayed. The life of a lead miner wasn't easy. They usually worked in the mines for about 14 hours a day, so they weren't in the camp very much. A miners' camp usually had about 60 men living together. They had shanties built of logs to sleep in. There were usually 4 men to each shanty. They each had their own blanket to sleep on and a tin cup and plate. They had one coffee pot, and they would eat together at the camp.

Other miners chose to live alone. They would make a dugout in the side of a hill and live inside. People said that they were living just like animals, like badgers. That's how these homes were named, Badger Huts.

That's how our state became known as "The Badger State" - not because we have lots of badgers crawling around here!

Settlements Continue to Grow

By 1837, more people came here from other areas in the United States and even Europe. Buildings began to go up rapidly and towns began to form.

There were several different settlements forming. The area around the cave that Willis St. John had found became known as Snake Hollow or some called it The Head of the Hollow. As people settled closer to the river, new settlements were formed and named, Van Buren, Lafayette, and Osceola. Soon, this place became known as the most important place along the Mississippi River, and Willis St. John became a very wealthy man!

The Kaltenbach home in Van Buren.

This is what's left of Oceola.

From 1841 through 1845, Potosi grew and grew! In 1845, someone wrote that Potosi was the largest town in the Western part of Wisconsin. We were beginning to become bigger and more important than Dubuque, Galena, Chicago, and even Milwaukee at that time.

As more people came, more settlements formed. Potosi was soon surrounded by other little settlements.

A mostly German settlement - Dutch Hollow - was formed in 1836. In 1913, it was renamed to be called Tennyson.

St. Andrew's Catholic School in Tennyson

A mostly French settlement - Pleasant Valley - was formed and then renamed to be called British Hollow in 1832.

British Hollow Main Street

An English and then German settlement, Rockville, was formed in 1832.

Road entering Rockville from the north.

Rockville School

That same year, Buena Vista was also formed.

By 1837, this area was really booming! In 1838, we were even considered to be named the state capitol! Belmont was chosen instead though.

The site of the first state capitol in Belmont.

By 1845, Potosi had a population of 1,300 people alone, and British Hollow had 700 in its town.

The settlement now known as "the ghost town", British Hollow.

How Potosi Got Its Name

In 1839, as settlements began to grow, people decided that they should get together. So, a meeting was held, and the people of Snake Hollow, Van Buren, and Lafayette decided to become one bigger and stronger town. A vote was held at the meeting and the name Potosi was decided on. There are several different reasons why people say Potosi was chosen, but most people believe that it was a name used for lead and precious minerals at that time. There are 3 other lead mining towns that have the same name. It is probably a Spanish name. They are:

Potosi, Missouri

Potosi, Mexico

Potosi, Bolivia

Some people believe that we were named after Julien Dubuque's wife, a Native American named Potosa. Her father was an Indian Chief named Peosta.

Julien Dubuque's tomb in Dubuque

The Process of Lead Mining

Being a lead miner was very hard work! The men would usually work about 14 hours each day and would earn about $1.00 for a day's work. Not only were the hours long, but the work was hard too. Lead is hidden in rock, so it is VERY heavy. The lead miners needed to find the lead, dig out the rock and then get the lead out! Lead was also found in caves and mines. So, lead miners were forced to work in dark, damp, cool, small places for hours at a time.

Lead miners had to find ways to get down to where the lead was and then they had to find a way to get the lead out of the mine. They used a machine they had called a windlass. They would use large buckets to lower the men down into the shaft and then they would load the buckets with lead to bring it back up. The only way out of the mine was to be brought up by the men running the windlass.

The first thing that the miners had to do was to find a place where they would be able to find lead. To do this, they would take a long pole and drive it down into the ground. If the pole came up with some minerals on it, they would begin to dig a larger hole to see if there was lead ore or galena there. If they found a vein of the gray mineral they would continue to dig and make a shaft down into the cave.

Wisconsin Flag which shows the symbol for mining

Tools Used in Lead Mining

Candles

Pick

shovel

pig tail

bucket and maul

model of a windlass

Gad or miner's steel

Gad Pin

Black Powder Spoon

Fuse

Stick and Tommy

smelter

Miners in Cassville

Once the miners found a vein of lead, they needed to get the galena out of the rock. That meant that they had to chip away the piece of rock. Once it was loosened, they would get the chunk of rock out and place it in the bucket. When the bucket was full, they would ring a bell to let the men at the windlass know that it was ready to be brought up.

Then the bucket filled with galena had to be taken to the smelter. Sulfur surrounded the lead, and they had to get the lead out. The miners knew that lead would melt easily if the temperature was hot enough. They built the first smelter in 1834. It was like a very hot oven, made in the side of a hill, near water. The hillside was important so that they could have a chimney and the water was needed to cool the lead. The water also was the place that the miners would get rid of the rocks and waste that was left. The fire would be up to 620 degrees. The galena went into the smelter and the lead came pouring out.

It smelled like rotten eggs as it melted, but then it came out in a liquid form and was ready to sell. They would pour the lead into a brick like shape, called a pig, that weighed about 70 pounds. Pigs of lead were loaded onto steamers to be taken to be sold.

Smelters like these always needed to be near 2 things; a hill so that they could have a good chimney for draft to keep the fire hot, and a stream so that they could have a place to get rid of the rock that they didn't need.

Why Did People Want to Buy Lead?

Lead was used for many things. One of its main uses was to make bullets. They also used lead to make lead shot, lead weights, sinkers, utensils, and tools. Lead did not rust easily so they used it for pipes too. By 1843, St. John Mine became the most productive mine in the state. It produced 250,000 pounds of lead!

Watch Potosi Grow!

By 1845, Potosi was at its largest!

We had many places to visit!

We had:

3 churches - Presbyterian, Methodist, and Catholic

24 stores and shops

general stores, drug stores, hardware store, clothing store, candy store, jewelry store, hat shop, dress makers, bakery, tailors, shoe shops, and barber shops

3 hotels

4 smelters

6 saloons

1 ten pin alley

2 stables

3 doctors

1 dentist

2 lawyers

3 judges

1 newspaper - The Potosi Republic

12 brick and mason workers

25 joiners

lots of miners

2 painters

1 post office

4 blacksmiths

20 factories

cabinet makers, tanning mills, brickyards, chair maker, copper and tinsmiths, wagon makers, harness shops, saw mills, watch maker, creamery, flour mill, saddle makers, stove merchant

brewery

1 undertaker

2 schools

And that's just Potosi!

British Hollow also had many places to visit!

They had:

1 brewery

2 stores

3 saloons

1 wagon makers

2 blacksmiths

1 dance hall

1 harness maker

1 hotel

2 doctors

2 butchers

Girls' School

Boys' School

Potosi Elementary School

Potosi High School

Rigsby School

Rockville School

British Hollow School

The Potosi Brewery

St. Thomas Church in Potosi (the first church was just a log cabin built in this spot)

Davies Memorial Church in Potosi built in 1891 to replace the Presbyterian Church

Presbyterian Church in Potosi 1840

Methodist Church in British Hollow

Presbyterian Church in Rockville

Potosi's Main Street showing the Vogelsberg Hotel

Hunt and Wright building in Potosi

Ostermeir Hotel in Potosi

Burton Store

Masonic Lodge in Potosi

Potosi 1936 Celebration of 100 years of St. Thomas Church

Village Blacksmith Shop in Tennyson

Salt Box Style House

Look closely. Can you see when this building in Potosi was built?

Potosi Saw Mill

General Store

Mabel and Bill Schnider's Store around 1945. Bill Horner is in the middle. He was their butcher.

The Walsh Store in Tennyson

Model of the Walsh Store inside

Original Log Cabin built in 1848.

On the street in Tennyson

Why Didn't Potosi Keep Growing?

News began to spread that lead was causing some health problems. It was causing people to get lead poisoning. When this was figured out, people didn't want lead as much as they did before. It was still used for bullets and lead shot, but without wars, people didn't need many bullets either. Suddenly, people weren't making as much money doing the hard work of lead mining. From 1845-1848, A war over the land we now called Texas broke out. It was called the Mexican-American War. That helped make lead mining more worthwhile, but only for awhile.

In 1848, after the war, Willis St. John decided to sell his lead mine. He sold it to a man named Nelson Dewey. He became the governor of Wisconsin. Willis St. John had become a very rich man!

Nelson Dewey

Governor Nelson Dewey - first governor of Wisconsin

In 1849, all of the miners in this area began to hear news about miners getting rich out farther west, in California. These people had all come to Potosi to get rich, now they were ready to move on. They had heard about something called Gold! Many people left here with what is now called the California Gold Rush. In 1850, more people left to go to California too. Slowly people were leaving our area for a new adventure.

In 1852, there was an outbreak of a disease that was very catching and deadly, called Cholera. People here began to get sick. Some died and some just moved to get away from the sickness.

Lumbering became the way for people to make money here now that lead wasn't as valuable. From 1853 - 1868, there were 3 lumber yards that kept Potosi's trade going.

Potosi Saw Mill

From 1859-1864, another war broke out. This war was called the Civil War. Again more bullets were needed, but our town didn't continue to grow.

In 1870, another problem hit our town. We had done most all of our business by using steam boats on the Mississippi River. The people of the area had been cutting down many trees for their lumbering trade. As the trees were removed, the soil didn't have anything to hold it in place. As it rained, the process of erosion began to fill the slough the steamers had used with mud. The water was no longer deep enough for the large boats to stop, and soon the river trade ended. The lead was now being taken to Cassville, where the steamers would stop.

When the steamer stopped here it would come loaded with supplies: dry goods, bacon, flour, staples, and even whiskey. Then it would empty the supplies and load up as much as 3000 pigs of lead. That made everyone want to come to Potosi. Once the steamer didn't stop any more, people didn't come as often either. In 1877, the St. John Mine closed.

Steamboat Landing

By 1895, Potosi's population dropped to 494 people and soon British Hollow became a ghost town!

In 1853, Willis St. John had died a very poor man, and lead mining in Potosi had pretty much died too.

Our Brewery

In 1855, a man named Gabriel Hail first started a Brewery. Horse drawn wagons would take the beer he made to sell in Potosi and other near by towns. He continued to make beer until 1886. When he stopped, a man named Adam Schumacher, who had come from Germany and worked with Gabriel Hail as a brewmaster, bought the brewery and kept it going. In 1891, his brothers, Nicholas, Henry, and George joined him to work there too. The railroad came to town, and the steamboats didn't, so the Schumachers bought their own steamboat and named it the Potosi Steamer. It made trips to Dubuque every day carrying as much as 6 to 8 wagon loads of Good Old Potosi Beer. By 1906, our beer was popular in 5 states, and our brewery expanded.