In 1896, prospector James Henry Holden discovered ore in a valley among the mountains above Lake Chelan in north-central Washington state, but he was never able to develop a mine. Not until 1938, two decades after his death, did Howe Sound Mining Company send the first shipment of concentrate down narrow Lake Chelan.

Over the next 19 years, about $66 million worth of ore was extracted – 200 million pounds of copper, 40 million pounds of zinc, two million ounces of silver and 600,000 ounces of gold –  and Holden Village was home to about 600 people. It looked more like a college campus than a mining town, said the Wenatchee Daily World. It had a school, a barbershop and a recreation hall with a bowling alley.