In 1869 gold was discovered in the Snake River Canyon in the vicinity of Shoshone Falls, and by 1872 about 3,000 miners had come to the area in search of the precious metal. The richest deposits were said to be in the area between Murtaugh, about above Shoshone Falls, and Clark's Ferry, about below the falls. The towns of Shoshone City, Springtown and Drytown were created as a result of the gold rush. However, the boom quickly ended as the local geology and manner of sediment deposits made it difficult to remove gold. The first miners were mainly of European descent, and were later replaced by Chinese miners who continued to work the claims into the early 1880s, in search of the fine gold particles known as "gold flour".