In the 1870s, Sergeant James C. Cooney of Fort Bayard found a rich strand of gold in the Gila Mountains near the future site of Mogollon. A miner named John Eberle built the first cabin in Mogollon in 1889, after mines were developed in Silver Creek, which runs through the town.

At one time, Mogollon boasted a population of some 3,000 to 6,000 souls and, because of its isolation, was truly one of the wildest, shoot-'em-up mining towns in the West. Mining continued up to the 1950s and resumed for a short time in the 1970s before coming to a halt.