Kongsberg was founded by Danish-Norwegian king Christian IV as a mining community in 1624 after the discovery of silver. In the second year, the town of Kongsberg and the Kongsberg Silver Mines were built. According to official records, the Kongsberg silver mine was discovered by the shepherds Jacob Grosvold and Helge Værp in the summer of 1623. According to the indications of silver mining, the existence of a large amount of precious metals was known before. With the rise of the silver mining industry, it became the largest industrial center in Norway before the industrial revolution. By the peak of the Kongsberg silver mine in the early eighteenth century, Kongsberg's silver mining industry and related industries contributed 10% of the Denmark–Norway gross national product.