Gold was discovered at Valdez Creek in 1903 by J.C. Clarkson, John M. Johnson, James S. Smith and Peter Monahan from Valdez, for which the creek was named. The Valdez Creek Mine operated on the tributary during 1984 - 1996 reaching peak annual production rates of 100K ounces. The district has produced a recorded 510K of gold.

The Goodnews Bay platinum placer deposit was discovered in 1938. Mining by a floating dredge produced over 500,000 ounces of platinum since that date.

Other important discoveries include:
• 1968 Red Dog—The richest zinc deposit in the world
• 1974 Quartz Hill—In southeast Alaska, a very large, high grade molybdenum deposit
• 1979 Greens Creek—A rich polymetallic deposit mined for silver, gold, zinc, and lead
• 1984 Ft. Knox—A large low grade intrusion-hosted gold deposit in the Fairbanks district
• 1987 Pebble Copper—One of the largest gold, copper, molybdenum deposits in the world- contains 65 M ounces gold, 50.6B pounds of copper, 3.1B pounds of molybdenum
• 1988 Donlin Creek—Large refractory gold deposit in the Aniak mining district between the Kuskokwim and Yukon Rivers; contains a 28.4 M ounce gold resource
• 1994 Pogo—Large high grade underground operation commissioned in 2006
• 1995 MAN—Potentially large copper-nickel-platinum resource near Paxson
• 2005 LMS, Whistler, Terra—Potentially large gold discoveries in the Interior