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The Mount Royal – Orange Plains deposits were found in 1884. The Nelson – Underlay deposits were found in 1899.

The name Tottenham does not appear in early reports and is first used in records of the New South Wales Department of Mines in the Annual Report of the Department for 1908.

Major producers were Bogan River, Mount Royal – Orange Plains, Carolina and Ace. The most active period of production was between 1905 and 1917. After 1917 production continued at a lower level until 1930. In 1943 minor tonnages were won from the Mt. Royal, and Bogan River mines. There was minor production each year from 1946 to 1977 which came from small scale operations at the Mt. Royal, Bogan River, Underlay and Carolina Mines and from leaching at the Mt. Royal, Carolina and Underlay Mines.

Copper production is estimated to be 3907 tonnes with minor gold (4.5kg) and silver (24.1kg).

LH Smart Pty Ltd was the first of the “modern” explorers in 1964. Subsequent explorers include Amad NL in joint venture with Lamadec Exploration Pty Ltd, and Le Nickel Exploration.

The more recent exploration effort commenced when Arimco conducted extensive geophysics and drilling between 1996 and 1998. Straits Resources Ltd. joint ventured into the project in 1998 and also pursued a programme of soil geochemistry, geophysics and drilling.

Mincor Resources NL acquired EL6592 and EL6656 in 2006. Mincor have since spent more than $6M on the project with widespread soil sampling; drilling; detailed airborne magnetics and electromagnetics; and resource calculations.

Bacchus Resources Pty Ltd. entered into a joint venture with Mincor in early 2017 with the view to drill, increase some resources and have the leases renewed.