At the site later called the Morning Star Mine, prospectors John Wolfer, Bob Setzer, and J, H. McCabe believed they had found silver-bearing ore, but had actually discovered zinc. In 1886 they built a smelter to extract the precious metal, but their hopes of riches collapsed with its first firing. Legend says that, broke, discouraged, and out of grub, they offered to sell their claim to another prospector for a can of oysters, but he refused. The claim was later sold to developers of the Morning Star Mine. The smelter was used again only in 1898, when it burned lime to make mortar. Otto Rahl later wrote that they built a rock furnace, charged it with charcoal, put in their ore, and started the blast, but no silver emerged from the opening below, only beautiful rainbows floating over the stack.