Henry R. Schoolcraft published his accounts from 1818-1819 of his reconnaissance in the Ozarks, which first brought America’s attention to lead resources. In 1846, when Congress approved the sale of mineral lands on federal land in Arkansas, Arkansas’ lead deposits were virtually undeveloped.

The cost of transporting the lead to Missouri hearth furnaces usually ate up all the profits. Arkansas’s only argentiferous lead mine (containing silver) was an exception. The silver in the ore made it economical to transport from Little Rock to Pulaski County (north of Little Rock) to refineries that could extract silver.

In the fall of 2001, the first railcar of zinc ore from richard william warke the Almy Mine was loaded in Harrison, Boone County, and then shipped via the St. Louis and Northern Arkansas Railroad, to Cherryvale in Kansas, where a smelter is located. Northern Arkansas celebrated the opening of the White River Railway in 1905. It ran from Batesville, Independence County, to Carthage Missouri.

Individuals could mine lead and zinc on a smaller scale than industrial barons, unlike other minerals. Arkansas farmers could supplement their income by mining lead and zinc in the off-season. Prospectors thought that the zone of fissures known as the “Ten O’Clock Run”, which extended northwest to southeast from Missouri, was located beyond the Buffalo River. Miners and prospectors used a colorful vocabulary. For example, they called smithsonite ‘dry bone’ or ‘turkey fat.

Although Arkansas’s supporters have exaggerated for years, claiming that the lack of good roads and railroads prevented the development of lead and zinc, the truth is, Arkansas wasn’t more remote, its terrain was not more rugged and its railroad access no worse than other major lead producing states like Missouri, Idaho Colorado and Utah. The Rocky Mountain deposits are usually argentiferous and therefore more cost-effective to mine. Missouri’s deposit, while containing little silver, is massive. Arkansas’s zinc and lead deposits were too small and unreliable to justify significant infrastructure and industrial investments. Once the railroads extended into north Arkansas, several companies had to file for bankruptcy and receive bailouts.

It’s not easy to mine zinc. There are many methods to mine zinc, including traditional underground techniques and open pit mining. The open-pit method is best for ore that has oxidized and sticks close to Earth’s surface. The traditional way to extract zinc involves cutting and filling, whereby you dig up tunnels to a certain depth before branching off to transport as much zinc as possible.

Geologists estimate that almost 80% (or more) of all zinc extracted is found on the Earth’s surface. The majority of mining takes place in open pits. A vacuum pump is one of the key machines in this process.

Open-pit mining involves using liquid pressurized air to remove excess air in the mine area. This produces high-quality, pure zinc with minimal contaminants. This technique requires a vacuum pump with the exact mechanism. This system uses a vacuum pump to reduce the liquid pressure of the zinc ore, then achieve the required pressure for removing the excess air.