Built in 1877, these kilns produced charcoal for the Modock Mine smelter about 20 miles to the west. Workers filled the stone kilns with piñon pine logs, which were relatively abundant in this area, and fired them. The burning reduced the wood to charcoal in six to eight days, and cooling took another five days. Wagons then hauled the charcoal to the furnace smelter, where it was burned to extract silver and lead for the Modock Consolidated Mining Company, owned by George Hearst, father of newspaperman William Randolph Hearst. The kilns closed after only three years, but they still smell of creosote inside. Because of their brief life and remote location, these may be the best preserved examples of charcoal kilns in the west.