Mineral Point is a city in Iowa County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 2,581 at the 2020 census. The city is located within the Town of Mineral Point. Mineral Point is allowance of the Madison Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Mineral Point was fixed in 1827, becoming a lead and zinc mining center, and poster town in the 19th and ahead of time 20th centuries. In the mid-20th century it attracted artists and an artist’s colony and its tourism industry began to grow. The city’s well-preserved historical feel within the varied natural topography of the driftless area has made it a regional tourist destination. Mineral Point is sometimes called Wisconsin’s third oldest city, but the Wisconsin Historical Society clarification several older colonial settlements.

The first European settlement at Mineral Point began in 1827. One of the first settlers to the Place was Henry Dodge and his relatives who granted a few miles away from Mineral Point. During the taking into consideration year, large quantities of galena, or lead ore, were discovered approximately the unity in shallow deposits. Lead had many uses at the time, and settlers began to flock to the region hoping to make a breathing by extracting the easily accessible mineral. Lead deposits lengthy throughout an area that furthermore included Dubuque, Iowa and Galena, Illinois, but Mineral Point became the middle of lead mining operations within the bounds of present-day Wisconsin (then part of Michigan Territory). By 1829, the region’s growing population led to the initiation of Iowa County, which included anything of the help mining lands within the territory. Mineral Point was conventional as the county seat later that year. During the Black Hawk War of 1832, residents of Mineral Point built Fort Jackson to protect the town from a realistic attack. The pubescent settlement’s importance was new confirmed in 1834 in the aerate of it was prearranged as the site of one of two federal land offices responsible for distributing public estate to settlers within the area that now encompasses Wisconsin.

When Wisconsin Territory was created in 1836, Mineral Point hosted the commencement of the first territorial governor, Henry Dodge, and the territorial secretary, John S. Horner. During the ceremony, a design by Horner was officially endorsed as the Great Seal of Wisconsin Territory. It displayed an arm holding a pickaxe on height of a pile of plus ore, demonstrating the importance of Mineral Point’s prematurely mining economy to the further territory. A census conducted in the months after the instigation showed that Iowa County had 5,234 inhabitants, making it the most populous county in the Wisconsin Territory east of the Mississippi River.