Potosi, WI - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

Right on State 129 to POTOSI, 1 m. (786 alt., 447 pop.), and tiny POTOSI STATION, 2.5 m., the former a famous mining town, the latter a river port that rivaled Galena, Ill. From Potosi Station lead was shipped out on river barges, and supplies were brought in for distribution through the backwoods. One of the great lead strikes of the region occurred in 1829 when prospectors from Dubuque and Galena uncovered a rich vein in this hollow. Immediately miners rushed in with pick and shovel, ripped the ore from the ground, and shipped it down the Mississippi in grimy barges. Pocked with the scars of old pits, Potosi winds along the narrow valley floor, a drowsy and well-worn village. The brewery, its oldest part built solidly of stone about 1852, still operates. During prohibition it manufactured a cereal beverage. Frame or stone houses are often niched into the hillside; vaultlike root cellars penetrate the coulee walls behind them.
---Wisconsin, A Guide to the Badger State, 1941

Today The town of Potosi looks much as it must have in 1941. There are still houses niched into the hillside. The brewery is operating again after e brief hiatus. The St. John Mine sells the opportunity to visit an old lead mine. There is a self-guided trail through the woods where visitors can see the remnants of the miners "Badger Huts".

The historical marker reads:
"One of Wisconsin's early mining communities, Potosi was settled in 1829 after lead ore was found near St. John Mine. Named for the silver mining city of "Potosi" in Bolivia, South America, the village began as three separate settlements and developed along the steep walls of the narrow valley, incorporating in 1841. Located on the Great River feeding into the Mississippi, Potosi quickly became a leading shipping port for lead ore and a supplier for inland miners. Potosi was one of the largest communities in the Wisconsin Territory, but its early boom was short-lived: by the late 1840s, its port filled with river silt, no longer accomodating large vessels, and the promise of gold in California drew many area miners further west. However, Potosi's mining industry was revived in the later half of the 19th century when zinc, a by-product of lead mining was produced. The Potosi Brewery, built by Gabriel Hall in 1855, remained an important industry for over a hundred years."