[1] In 1894, prospectors Frederic Mooers and William Langdon ventured into the Red Mountain range in the Mojave Desert, where they discovered trace amounts of gold.

They discovered a significant gold vein that surfaced near the top of Rand Mountain and formed the Yellow Aster Mining and Milling Company to exploit their claim.

By the end of 1897, more than $600,000 (equivalent to $21,974,400 in 2023) of gold had been produced in the Rand Mining District, mostly from Yellow Aster.

[1] Initially, gold ore was shipped to processing mills at Garlock and later Barstow, via the newly opened Randsburg Railway.

Shipping the heavy ore limited the amount of gold that could be produced, so the company built a thirty-stamp mill on site, which opened in early 1899.

[2] The gold ore was primarily accessed through a series of horizontal tunnels at multiple levels on the mountainside.

External inclines were used to connect the tunnel portals with the loading point for the wagon trains to Garlock.