Between the North and Middle forks of Yuba River northeast of Foster's Bar. The diggings developed around the Nevada House, a hostelry built in 1850 or 1851 on the Nevada City-Downieville Road. It was named in 1854 for Robert Campton, the blacksmith. It had been named at an earlier time, according to William Bull Meek. He stated that the miners drew up resolutions to form the Camptonville Mining District on December 6, 1852. Prospectors had sunk a shaft in 1852 and discovered a rich lode on the Blue Lead, which stretched from Brandy City in Sierra County to North San Juan in Nevada County.

A post office was established February 18, 1854. In 1855, the population of the town and vicinity was about 1,300. In 1858 the Sierra Mountain Water Company proposed the building of a canal to bring the needed water. Hydraulic mining was very profitable in Camptonville. The shipment of gold reached the figure $600,000 for the year 1860. The hydraulic diggings resulted in bluffs 60 to 100 feet thick being washed away for hundreds of acres, and the town was described by visitors as 'dilapidated'.

In 1905 there was an electric-powered mill with three stamps. Lester A. Pelton invented his famous water wheel in Camptonville.