Ghost and active mining camps are to be found in almost every gulch. The ores yield gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc. The district has been producing since quartz mining came into favor following the first wave of placer mining in the 1860s. In those days placer deposits were the poor man’s eldorado. They needed little more than a grub stake, a pick and a shovel to work them. Quartz properties, seldom rich at the surface, required machinery and capital, transportation and smelting facilities.

Before smelters were built in Montana, ore from some of the richest mines in this region was shipped by freight team, boat and rail to Swansea, Wales, and Freiburg, Germany, for treatment.