See also Camas County Idaho Gold Production
Big and Little Smoky and Rosetta Districts
Commodities: gold, lead, silver
These three districts adjoin each other and the boundaries between them are indefinite. Most of the mines are little over 25 miles by road from Fairfield on a branch of the Union Pacific Railroad. Placer and probably also lode mining were formerly carried on in the Rosetta and Big Smoky districts, but neither has ever been active and both have long been quiescent. Even in the Little Smoky district, which was most active between 1880 and 1890 and from which most of the production of over $1,000,000 came, little has been done since 1900.
These districts are now relatively accessible, and the lead and zinc ore characteristic of the principal lodes can be more easily handled than in the early days. Consequently, it is to be hoped that the renewed interest manifested in the area since 1929 may eventually result in production.
Large parts of the three districts are underlain by the Idaho batholith, but most of the lodes are in the impure quartzites and limestones that it intrudes. In places, there are dikes of granophyre and kindred porphyries and extensive remnants of the Challis volcanics, all later than the mineralization.
The ore deposits of the Little Smoky district are replacements along shear zones and are closely similar to many in the nearby Mineral Hill and Warm Spring districts that have been abundantly productive. The principal ore minerals are galena, sphalerite, pyrite, and tetrahedrite in a gangue of quartz, siderite, and altered country rock.
Little is known regarding the Big Smoky and Rosetta districts. There are probably lead deposits like those of the Little Smoky, and also gold-quartz veins.
Placer mining has been carried on near Worsewick Hot Springs in the Rosetta district and in the open valley at the sharp. right-angle bend in Little Smoky Creek in the district of that name. The production from both areas appears to have been small.
Skeleton District
Commodity: gold
This district, wholly within the Idaho batholith, is reported to contain gold lodes and placer deposits, but they have received little development and little is known about them. The area is reached by trail from Atlanta or Featherville on the west or by road and trail from Soldier to the south. Some extend the limits of the district to include mines in the Soldier district as the latter is delimited on Plate 1.
In consequence of this and the scanty information available about either district, it is impossible to separate with certainty references to them in Mineral Resources. In the list of such references which follows, most of the references probably concern the Skeleton district as shown on Plate 1, but the first five, and possible others also, concern the Soldier district.
Soldier District
Commodities: lead, copper
The Soldier district, wholly within the Idaho batholith and 10 to 20 miles from points on the Hill City branch of the Union Pacific Railroad, is little known and has not been very productive. The Perseverance mine, one of the few in the district recently operated, is on a breccia zone in which crushed and chloritized granitic rock is impregnated with vein quartz which has itself been crushed and recemented. Galena, chalcopyrite, and pyrite are plentiful in irregular bands. Some include this district with the Skeleton district which adjoins it on the north.
Willow Creek District
Commodities: lead, silver
Most of the production of this district, which is a little over 25 miles by road from Fairfield on a branch of the Union Pacific Railroad, came from the Gertie Riddle (Buttercup) and other lead mines in Paleozoic strata nearby in 1886 to 1893, and apparently did not much exceed $75,000. The recent exploration of galena- bearing veins in granitic rock at the Perserverance has not resulted in much production.
