If you’re around the White tank mountains, there’s a little bit of mining history to that area. Not much of it is written down and its hard to locate, but there’s a couple of old copper mines, not sure how big, could have been a one person operation, or a small pit, I’ve never looked but seen it on a map, a few manganese dig sites, and supposedly some old small gold sites around Aguilla. There’s rumors of a gold placer somewhere on the mountain, but not sure I believe that one.
THe historical USGS maps available on line give locations of these mines, and a minedat search shows some data