North Cascades

MARKETING THE WILDERNESS: DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISES

Stehekin Mining District

MINERAL RESOURCES: MINING

Stehekin Mining District

On April 28, 1896, a handful of miners of the Chelan Mining District met at the post office in Stehekin and proceeded to organize a new district, calling it the Stehekin Mining District. [137] Discoveries made nearly a decade earlier had finally brought the upper Stehekin valley into the limelight, and these early miners wanted to protect their interests. Fortunes were sought primarily in three major areas on the eastern slope -- at Doubtful Lake, Horseshoe Basin, and Bridge Creek. As elsewhere, only those who located prospects early and sold out to others left with money in hand. By the close of the 1910s mining activity had all but ceased in the upper Stehekin valley. Reactivated in the 1940s, the mines never regained their former status, and work developing these claims ceased in the 1950s.

Early view of Bridge Creek mining camp,
located at confluence of Bridge Creek and Stehekin River, n.d.
(NOCA-Stehekin photo file)