Late last month, a good crowd gathered along Hippy Hollow Road, east of USH 61 and east of where the community of British Hollow once was. What was before the crowd were two massive stonework arches, rebuilt extensions of massive lead smelting furnaces that were in prime operation more than 180 years ago, and which for more than the past century had the ravages of time and man slowly come apart, get reclaimed by the Earth. But the work of generations of enthusiasts, who wanted to see this unique part of our region’s history, the smelting ovens stood in that Spring sun, closer to what they once were, with the possibility they would be returned to their former glory. Dennis Yoose stood between the two furnaces, surrounded by individuals he drafted into the latest phase of the cause to preserve the plants. John Myers, Curt Uppena and Jamie Timmerman worked to get the plant to where it is right now, assisted by people like Ron Kelly , Gene Oyen.

Before them, there was a massive project to unearth the plant, which had the hill it is installed on, envelope it for much of the past century. “As far as we know, this is the only one in the state that is this intact,” said John Broihahn from the Wisconsin Historical Society. Estimated to have been built sometime in the late 1830s or early 1840s (there are no precise records for the site) the plant would take the raw lead ore that miners had collected, where it was cleaned and then melted to manageable slugs that would then be brought to teh Mississippi River, where it would be loaded up and shipped to be used elsewhere.

It is not known exactly when the plant was in use, or when it was shut down, but images of the plant from the beginning of the 20th Century show a location where the roof was coming off, and the outer blockwork was starting to be harvested by others to use for other projects.

The plant would sit, being reclaimed by the elements so that when it was being explored in the 1960s, all but a section of the storage area behind the furnaces remained visible.

The Potosi Township Historical Society began work to uncover the plant in the 1990s, after giving tours of the site. Next week - dump trucks of dirt, and hours of stone laying.