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The Ferris-Haggarty Mine site is a specific point of interest relative to the Grand Encampment Mining District. The era of the Grand Encampment district began in 1897. In that year Ed Haggarty, a prospector from Whitehaven, England, discovered a rich copper prospect which he named the Rudefeha, or the Ferris-Haggarty property, as it soon came to be named. Much of the more than two million dollars of copper from this area of Wyoming came from this one great prospect and mine.

Seeking capital and the development of the region was the foremost advocate or promoter of the Grand Encampment Mining Region, Willis George Emerson. Upon obtaining an interest in the Ferris-Haggarty property, and establishing a plethora of companies, promoter Emerson attracted dollars toward the construction of such things as a four-mile, wood and iron pipeline designed to supply power to the smelter, and an aerial tramway. When completed, the tramway extended for sixteen miles from the Ferris-Haggarty Mine, over the Continental Divide at an elevation of 10,700 feet above sea level, and down through the mountains and across the valley floor to the smelter at Encampment.

By 1904 the mining operations were at their apex, employing 200 men and producing over $1,400,000 worth of copper. Although the price of copper increased to its highest ever at 26 cents a pound in 1907, the Grand Encampment area would not become a part of that copper prosperity. The Grand Encampment copper region epitomizes the ''boom and bust'' syndrome of many Western mining areas. The reasons for the collapse of the boom in the region are many. Foreclosure proceedings began in 1913 and salvage operations followed shortly.