Miners soon swarmed into the area from throughout the West. As various mines (with names such as Old Jordan, Winnamuck, Galena, and No-You-Don't), were located and worked, temporary camps sprang up all over Bingham Canyon. Miners, in search of pay dirt, soon spilled over to the western slope of the Oquirrhs. As a result, the Rush Valley Mining District was created in 1864 to encompass that area. There the town of Stockton was founded by General Connor, who named it after his home in California. The mining camp of Ophir soon sprang up to the south when prospectors learned that Indians had previously worked that area to make silver and gold trinkets as well as lead bullets. News of these discoveries spread rapidly and miners explored even farther south to open up the Tintic area in 1870-71. Some of the mines yielded rich deposits, but the recoverable ore was soon exhausted. Later, when technology advanced, many mines were reopened. Lode mining received its biggest boost with the arrival at the Oquirrhs of the Bingham and Camp Floyd branch of the Utah Central Railroad in 1873.

In 1882 quicksilver deposits were located in a canyon between the Ophir and Tintic mines. However, it was too difficult at that time to separate the silver from the mercury (from which the mining camp of Mercur received its name). So it was not until 1893, when the cyanide separation process was perfected, that the Mercur mines began to be profitable.