In addition to its status as a supply point for the railway, from the 1920s and 1930s it became the base for gold mining in the surrounding area.

[citation needed] From 1947 until 1953, Mogocha was site for the Klyuchevlag prison labor camp of the gulag system.

The camp held up to 3,000 prisoners at any one time, mainly used as forced labor for molybdenum and gold mining in the villages to the southwest of the town.

During the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations in the 1950s, a large airbase was created near Mogocha, which hosted several helicopter regiments until the 1990s.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and subsequent economic crisis, Mogocha lost around one third of its population, a common occurrence for cities in the Russian Far East.