From the 1860s, Bald Hill Flat, the area in which the rock shelter is found, was the centre of gold mining activity that extended along the slopes of the Old Man Range and the streams running from it. Gold was first discovered on the Clutha River at Dunstan (now Clyde, to the north of Alexandra) in 1862. In the same year, when the Clutha rose dramatically and flooded the Dunstan area, miners moved to prospect in the streams running from the Old Man Range, when gold was discovered on Coal Creek resulting in a rush to the area, at the southern end of what was then Speargrass Flat. Mining eventually focused on the more productive area of the Obelisk Creek flood plains, where the creek crosses Bald Hill Flat. Gorge Creek and the then nearby town of Chamounix developed as populated areas as a result of the mining. They feature particularly in stories of the 1863 snow storms in the region. In July of that year a rush had set in to Campbell's diggings at the back of the Old Man Range, and reports came through of 500 men snowed in there. Small parties managed to stagger the twenty to thirty miles to canvas towns such as Chamounix, where help was available, and in the spring when the snow thawed, bodies were recovered and buried at the town, as well as at Gorge Creek. Estimates of the numbers of dead varied from thirty to "hundreds." Many of the dead were unknown young men who had ventured into the diggings in search of a fortune, without a traceable identity. Following the severe storms and loss of life in 1863, the route to Campbells Diggings was marked with snow poles which began near the Gorge Creek at O'Brien's coaching house, close to the site of the rock shelter. The snow-pole track is still marked. A grave stone marker is said to mark the burial place of John Stewart. Stewart was a well-known, popular man in the district who ran a ferry, in the form of a bullock-hide boat, across the Clutha at Twelve-mile beach (near Gorge Creek. His body was later recovered and buried at Gorge Creek, marked by a schist grave stone. Other sources state that 17 men were buried in the grave at Gorge Creek, but only the names of Stewart and several others were identified. The journals of the nineteenth century missionary to Chinese miners in Central Otago, Rev. Alexander Don, are useful for his descriptions of the kind of shelters used by miners. On January 9, 1901 Don's journal is headed "A day among Troglodytes": "We counted 21 [caves] - only six occupied - in three miles of the Molyneux [Clutha] River gorge above Roxburgh. In winter, when the great stream is low, the empty caves will have their occupants. We had noon rice and a meeting of two men in one, an evening meeting with three in another, and a very welcome bed in a third. Some of these caves are very roomy and comfortable - cool in summer and warm in winter. But there is absolutely no ventilation, and when the door - usually a thick rice bag - is shut it is almost pitch dark." A reporter from the Otago Witness visited the grave site in 1910 and also described the rock shelter, whose occupant he noted was a German, although these have been commonly identified as the homes of Chinese miners as the Rev. Don demonstrated. From the grave, he walked on to find a "distinctly primitive" footbridge just below it; "further on is the dwelling of him who built it. It is a hole in a rock, with stones and rock to wall up the mouth. For years this was the habitation of a German up the gullies after gold." A year later, the "cave hut" appeared on a 1911 map, located next to "graves" on Calder's "Survey of the Mount Benger Runs." At Gorge Creek, close to the Miner's Rock Shelter, a monument was erected by the government in 1928 as a memorial to the mining pioneers who lost their lives in the 1863 storms. After the end of gold mining days, rock shelters and stone huts were abandoned as elderly miners died or left Central Otago in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During the 1930s depression, many unemployed moved back to rework the old gold diggings looking for a meagre income, re-occupying these old shelters. Dunedin journalist Fred Miller, who found himself unemployed at this time, left the city and took up a gold mining claim in the vicinity of Gorge Creek, living in an old rock shelter walled in random rubble, with a window in one wall, a chimney with a fireplace inside and a large stone platform for a floor. Miller describes 1930s Gorge Creek and Fruitlands, thinly disguised as "Appleton" in his book. His old home, the rock shelter, was evidently lower down Gorge Creek, as it now lies beneath Lake Dunstan. In 1980 the land was declared a reserve for historic purposes (NZG 1980, p.168.). In 1986 the land was resurveyed and set apart as a recreation reserve, to be known as Gorge Creek Recreation Reserve (NZG 1986, pp.1900-1901).

The Miner's Rock Shelter is located on State Highway 8 at the south of an area now known as Fruitlands, where the highway makes a sharp bend at Gorge Creek, a substantial stream that runs into the Clutha River by way of a steep, rocky gorge. It is located within a recreation reserve, along with a monument and gravesite dating back to 1863. Running parallel to the west of State Highway 8 is the Old Man Range, covered in snow in the winter months. On the slopes of this range are the Butchers, Obelisk, Coal and Gorge Creeks, and the site of the now-vanished packers' town that was called Chamounix, higher up Gorge Creek. These places are important in regional history for the stories of hardship, danger and loss of life associated with gold mining in the 1860s. Gorge Creek as with other areas along the Clutha were the scene of intensive gold mining activity from approximately 1862 until the early years of the twentieth century. The rock shelter is associated with gold mining, providing housing for some unknown miner during these years. It is located close to two other significant structures: a monument to miners who died on the Old Man Range, to the west of Fruitlands, in the severe snow storms of 1863 stands nearby and the grave stone of John Stewart and others who died in the same storm. The rock shelter is built beneath a large overhanging rock, walled in on two sides with random rubble schist. This is the kind of dwelling that was commonly used by many miners during the nineteenth century, as the journals of the Rev. Alexander Don demonstrate. Archaeological surveys have also revealed many similar structures throughout Central Otago mining areas. Many of these shelters, along with similar archaeological sites and historical structures, now lie beneath Lake Roxburgh and Lake Dunstan following the damming of the Clutha River near Roxburgh in 1956 and again at Clyde in the 1980s. In a survey of archaeological sites in the Lake Roxburgh district, Harrison recorded a total of 79 rock shelters in the Roxburgh Gorge. The Gorge Creek rock shelter was described in the course of the survey, c. 1982, as “partially collapsed and fossicked.” The large number of rock shelters identified in the survey area demonstrates that these were commonly used for accommodation by miners. Similar shelters have been identified in other areas of Central Otago. Many other gold mining industry sites as well as associated places such as coach and accommodation houses have been lost in the process of damming the Clutha Gorge. The rock shelter described here, easily accessible from State Highway 8, is important as a representative example of many similar shelters now lost.