Webb City, Missouri, began as a mining camp and grew to more than 15,000 people in about 25 years, occupying the central district of what became the world’s largest lead and zinc mining area, where more than 100,000 people lived in the immediate Webb City district, including Joplin. One June morning in 1873, while plowing a field on his farm, John C. Webb struck a large rock and discovered pure lead ore, but he continued planting and cultivating his corn crop that year. In 1874, he began mining, struggled with mineshafts filling with water, and after ordering a large pump and using his mules, unearthed a chunk of lead ore weighing more than 1,000 pounds. Finding mining laborious and a continual race with water, he leased his land to experienced miners on a royalty basis, a decision that made him the first millionaire in the area and helped trigger the great mining boom of the Webb City area. The Webb City district became known as the richest zinc and lead mining field in the world, drawing people by railroad, covered wagon, horseback, and on foot to build shacks, stores, hotels, restaurants, and saloons. By 1879, Webb City’s population exceeded 3,000 within the town, and Allen Street, now Main St., was crowded with men, horses, wagons, and buggies. By 1893, Webb City had taken on the appearance of a metropolitan city, with the business section of Allen Street stretching seven blocks and a hospital at Broadway and Tom providing operating space for limbs maimed or broken in mining accidents. In 1918, the mining boom ended when the greatest ore strike in the history of the Tristate district was discovered in Oklahoma, prompting a rush so great that Webb City’s mines closed within hours. Business and professional people responded by meeting as the Webb City Commercial Club, now the Webb City Chamber of Commerce, and with an average of 140 members gathering each week, they worked to rebuild the town by bringing in a shoe factory, a leather factory, and several other small businesses while encouraging existing industries to expand and slowing the exodus from the city. Route 66, also known as the Will Rogers Highway, the Main Street of America, and the Mother Road, was one of the original U.S. Highways, established on November 11, 1926, with signs erected the following year. Running from Chicago to Los Angeles through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California for 2,448 miles, it became one of America’s most famous roads, was celebrated by a hit song and the Route 66 television show in the 1960s, served as a major path for westward migrants especially during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, supported the economies of communities along its path, underwent many improvements and realignments, and was officially removed from the United States Highway System on June 27, 1985, though portions through Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, and Arizona were later designated the National Scenic Byway called Historic Route 66.