Lead, zinc, silver and ore were mined in the Holzappel Leopoldine-Louise mine in 1587.
The Holzappel mine was an underground mine with tunnels.
In 1844, Archduke Stephan, the mine owner at the time, had the first machine shaft, the Stephansschacht, built.
Narrow-gauge rails were laid for trolleys in the Adelheidstollen and Wilhelmstollen.
In 1853 the Stefanschacht received a steam engine.
In 1853, the mining and smelting facilities in the area around Holzappel became the Silber- und Bleibergwerksgesellschaft AG. This built a second machine shaft as a central shaft. In 1859, Laurenburg Castle became a mine administration facility.
In 1866, an efficient ore processing plant was built in Laurenburg, from which the Lahntal railway, which had been running for four years, transported the ores to Bad Ems for smelting.
In 1873 the ore was lifted from the Stefan and Mittelschacht to the Adelheid brine and brought to light using mine horses.
In 1904 the ore was transported via a lorry cable car to the ore processing and extraction plant.
In 1909, a boiler house was built for a compound machine with 440 KW of power on the 16th underground level (approx. 715 meters deep), which, powered by steam, pumped the groundwater via pipes from the shafts into the ponds and Lake Herta.
The Holzappel mine, merged under Stolberger Zink AG, was closed in 1930 and 550 miners were laid off