By 1905 mining activity was reviving in the Panamint region, and hope was seen for many of the old productive mines. Cerro Gordo was purchased by the Great Western Ore Purchasing and Reduction Company, which envisioned building a 100-ton smelter for custom work and also to process ore left on the Cerro Gordo dumps, earlier considered too low grade for the technological methods then in use. By modern methods the ore could be worked profitably.

By 1907 high-grade zinc was found in the old Cerro Gordo stopes, and ore shipments were begun. In 1912 the Cerro Gordo group, whose property now consisted of tunnels and shafts and an aerial tramway connecting the mine with the narrow-gauge Southern Pacific Railroad at Keeler , which had absorbed the old Carson & Colorado, was acquired by Utah mining men. Shipping 1,000 tons of ore daily, Cerro Gordo now became the largest producer of zinc carbonates in the United States.

In 1920 about ten men were still employed by the Cerro Gordo mines company and silver-lead ore was being shipped. A few years later, in 1924, silver-lead ore on the old dumps was to be worked by concentration and flotation after five concentrators were installed in the Keeler mill. Gross production of the Cerro Gordo camp from its early profitable years up until 1938 was probably around $17 million.

As a sidelight to this story, the old Swansea Mining District, seven miles southeast of Lone Pine and a competitor of Cerro Gordo in the 1860s, was also producing again in 1924 as its old dumps were slowly sampled.