In 1890 a parliamentary act was passed authorising the Illawarra Harbour and Land Corporation to begin projects near Dapto that would involve an outlay of many hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The more northerly of "the Twins" - two similar hills - was decapitated, thus providing a series of levels to which the ores would gravitate, in the various processes from bins to crushing and roasting plants, then to the blast furnaces before being sent to the refinery."

The report of the Commissioner for Railways for 1903 declared Dapto the most valuable station on the Illawarra line, its goods transfer totalling 22,000 pounds.

Quite suddenly in 1905 everything folded, competition cut off the supply of ore from Western Australia and Broken Hill, an ambitious scheme for treating nickel from New Caledonia came to nothing and in 1905 the works closed.

The first book, "John Brown of Brownsville: his manuscripts, letterbook and the records of Dapto Show Society 1857-1904" edited by Joseph Davis, deals with the man who did most to protect the vegetation of the Lake Islands.