The Pend Oreille Mine and Metal Company’s plant is the chief industrial development at Metaline, on the west bank of the Clark Fork River. The name is taken from the adjacent falls in the Pend Oreille River. The Pend Oreille Mine and Metal Company (incorporated in 1929) was once one of the most productive mining companies in the nation, producing 20 percent of the lead and 13 percent of the zinc in the United States. The mine closed in the mid 1970s, but the company’s current owner, Teck Cominco American Incorporated, rehabilitated the mine and reopened it in 2004.