After he developed an original refining process, Belgian industrialist
Jean-Jacques Dony received a decree from the
Napoleonic authorities in 1806, allowing him to mine the zinc ore deposit at La Vieille Montagne near
Liège. At that time, the area belonged to the French
département of the Ourthe. After Napoleon's defeat, in 1816 the département was divided between
Prussia, the
Netherlands and the neutral zone of Neu-Moresnet, which contained the zinc mine. The '''''' ( ‘Vieille Montagne Zinc Mining Company and
Foundries’) was created in 1837, after the independence of
Belgium (which took over the Dutch claim to the neutral zone). The workers of the VM were recruited by
Joseph Wharton in the mid-19th century to help him start his metallurgical business. At the time the name of the manager of VM was De Gee, who obtained a patent to make
zinc oxide by burning a mixture of coal and zinc ore. The Belgian mine continued its operation until the end of the nineteenth century, when a workforce of 300 produced 8,500 ton of crude zinc annually. The company opened a second zinc mine in
Zinkgruvan in
Sweden, which is still in operation. It also ran a harbour in
Åmmeberg to ship the zinc. The ore was shipped to another affiliate in
Balen,
Belgium. The company of Belgium (or ‘VM’ for short) came to England in 1896, specifically to the small remote village of
Nenthead in the
Pennine Hills of
Cumbria. The company survived two world wars and the inter-war economic depression, as well as fluctuations in the geological supply and market demand for zinc and lead. Then in 1949, after fifty-three years of operation, the VM sold its mineral leases, plant and equipment and left. In the
department of Ariège in France, the VM company took the lease on the zinc mines at in the
Pyrenees, also after World War II. The name became synonymous with
zinc oxide and with rolled zinc, especially for building applications. The company was the world's oldest and also largest zinc producer, producing at its peak at least 149,000 tonnes per year. In 1989 Vieille Montagne was merged into the
Union Minière group, based in Belgium, which became
Umicore in 2003. The group continues its rolled zinc activity under the brand VMZinc, which still refers back to the historical link with Vieille Montagne. Production on the site stopped in 1982. After rehabilitation work, the municipality gave the green light in 2025 to a new urbanization plan covering the mine's area. The Museum Vieille Montagne opened that same year in
La Calamine to commemorate the history of the site. ==Strike in Balen==