Today there are over a dozen mines and half a dozen quarries in the area.
Santa Rita is one of the oldest copper mines in this country. Apache Indians directed a Spanish commandant to the area in 1800. Soon afterwards, colonials built a fort and penal colony there, using slave Indian and child labor to dig shafts to the rich copper-bearing seams. By the end of the century, the high-grade ore was playing out, and skirmishes with the Indians left the mines abandoned. The village of Santa Rita got a temporary reprieve when the Chino Copper Company bought the rights in 1910.