Tuscarora originated with the 1867 discovery of placer gold by John and Steve Beard. In 1871, W.O. Weed discovered the rich Mount Blitzen silver lodes two miles northeast of the Beard claims. The camp was named by C.M. Bensen, who had served on the Civil War gunboat Tuscarora, itself named for a tribe in the Iroquois Confederation. Tuscarora's first boom, from 1872 to 1876, raised its population to three thousand whites and a like number of Chinese, many of whom had come on foot from Elko in the summer of 1869 after being abandoned by the Central Pacific Railroad after its completion. They began extensive placer operations at the Beard discovery site, later called Old Town to distinguish it from the main camp two miles away on Mount Blitzen. Estimates of silver and gold production during the camp's lifetime, from 1867 to 1915, ranged from 10 million to 40 million. Principal silver mines were the Navajo, Belle Isle, Argenta, Commonwealth, and Grand Prize. The only gold mine, the Dexter, opened after the principal silver strikes and operated continuously until 1898. Toll roads crowded with stagecoaches and long strings of heavy freight wagons served the camp from railheads at Elko, Carlin, Battle Mountain, and Winnemucca.