The old miners & the new miners
Mining Built Idaho
From the 1860 gold strike at Pierce to the critical minerals of today
Read the story
The old miners & the new miners
From the 1860 gold strike at Pierce to the critical minerals of today
Read the storyBefore Idaho had a capital, a county seat or a state seal, it had prospectors. Washington Territory expected this country to stay unsettled for another 50 years or so. Then gold was found at Pierce on September 30, 1860, miners came by the thousands, and within two years "the Idaho mines" held more people than the older settlements of Washington.[2]
The miners who made those first strikes kept moving. Men from Pierce went on to find Elk City and Florence, and from there Warren's and Boise Basin.[1] In 1862, Florence was by far the biggest community in Washington Territory, bigger than Olympia or Seattle that season.[2]
Life in the camps was hard and fast. In Boise Basin, placer water lasted only part of the year, so during the season "work went on day and night."[3] Idaho City survived a series of disastrous fires and was still the leading camp of Idaho in 1870, with a large Chinese community that made up more than half its population after 1868.[1] On War Eagle Mountain, the Poorman lode yielded over $500,000 in ore in just six days in 1865, and its specimens won a special gold medal at the 1867 Paris Exposition.[4]
What they built stayed. Boise was founded in the summer after the Boise Basin discovery, "directly from the mining advance."[1] Silver City's Owyhee Avalanche became Idaho's first daily newspaper once the telegraph reached town in 1874, and Owyhee mining later brought the Boise, Nampa & Owyhee Railway to Murphy.[4] When the Legislature adopted the Great Seal of Idaho in 1891, it put a miner on it.[11]
Gold at Pierce, September 30, 1860, marked the beginning of mining in Idaho. Several thousand prospectors joined the Clearwater rush in spring 1861, and the first season's yield approached a million dollars.[1][2]
The Salmon River rush made Florence the territory's largest town in 1862. Boise Basin was discovered August 2, 1862, and with about 20,000 people it became the largest of Idaho's early mining communities. Governing these distant mining regions from Olympia was impractical, and the pressure led to the creation of Idaho Territory in 1863.[1][2] Boise Basin went on to yield about 2.9 million ounces of gold.[1]
Michael Jordan's party struck gold on Jordan Creek on May 18, 1863. Rich silver lodes on War Eagle and Florida Mountains followed, and the region produced $40 million or more, mainly by 1912.[4]
The first major lead-zinc-silver discovery in the Coeur d'Alenes was staked in 1884.[5] The district has produced more than 1.25 billion troy ounces of silver[7], more than any other mining district in the world except perhaps Potosí, Bolivia.[6] It is home to the Bunker Hill (more than 150 miles of workings) and the Sunshine, which produced about 367 million ounces of silver.[5]
The Yellow Pine mine at Stibnite mined and milled more tungsten and antimony than any other U.S. mine. It supplied 40% of the nation's domestic tungsten and 90% of its antimony for armor-piercing shells, bullets, batteries and fireproofing.[8]
More than 14 million pounds of cobalt came from the Blackbird district from 1952 to 1959.[1] Today the Idaho Cobalt Belt holds the largest known cobalt resources in the United States.[20]
Southeast Idaho's phosphate district feeds American agriculture.[10] Thompson Creek molybdenum is restarting[10], Lucky Friday silver set a production record in 2025[13], and Stibnite is being rebuilt as America's only reserve of antimony.[15]
The Coeur d'Alene district has produced more than 1.25 billion ounces, ranking it in the global top ten.[7]
Stibnite supplied 90% of U.S. antimony and 40% of domestic tungsten in WWII.[8]
Thompson Creek in Custer County is on track for production in the second half of 2027.[10]
Today's miners are working the same ground with a different mission: produce the metals America needs and leave the land better than they found it. The lead example is right in the heart of Idaho's backcountry.
The wartime mining at Stibnite left a legacy. The East Fork of the South Fork of the Salmon River still runs into the old Yellow Pine pit, and the river has not flowed naturally there for nearly a century.[17] Perpetua's plan, approved by the U.S. Forest Service, is to redevelop the district and repair it at the same time:[16][17]
Status as of 2026: The Forest Service signed the final Record of Decision on January 3, 2025, after more than seven years of study.[14] The Plan of Operations was approved in October 2025, and early works construction started October 21, 2025.[15][17] In 2026, crews began work on the Burntlog access road, worker housing, power upgrades and drilling, aiming for operations in 2029.[19]
The old miners worked by hand and by water. The new miners can see into the ground and watch a slope move by millimeters before they ever turn a shovel.
The technologies above are drawn from USGS, federal agency and peer-reviewed sources. We only name a company or project as using a tool where its own or a regulator's source says so.
Mining still carries rural Idaho. According to the Idaho Mining Association's 2023 economic study:[11]
A mining-related job pays about $108,500 in average compensation, 71% higher than the Idaho average.[11] The Idaho Department of Lands manages mineral leasing on more than 3.4 million acres of state endowment trust land, and that revenue helps fund Idaho's public schools.[12]
In the Silver Valley, Hecla's Lucky Friday mine, operating since 1942, produced a record 5.26 million ounces of silver in 2025. It contributed $190 million to nearby communities, including $68 million in wages. Hecla also completed reclamation of three legacy tailings facilities, with the state releasing the last bond in 2025.[13]
The old miners built Idaho. The new miners are building it again, with better tools and a lighter footprint.
High Valley Geosystems brings that modern toolkit to Idaho mining: field geology, slope and tailings monitoring, seismic and vibration data, and clear reporting.
Dollar figures from historic sources are in the dollars of their day. Company figures and plans come from the company's own statements.