As prospectors dispersed from Austin, several of them discovered rich placer sands located in what is now Elko County. It was in 1867, shortly after the Civil War, and one of the miners called the place Tuscarora to honor a Union gunboat on which he had served. Area underground deposits attracted some attention, but surface placer mining was the primary focus.
Profit was elusive until Chinese workers, recently discharged from the completed transcontinental railroad, began arriving in 1869. They purchased placer claims and turned them to profit. Over a hundred Chinese overshadowed a resentful EuroAmerican minority.
Local EuroAmericans focused their attention on underground mines, which were sometimes prosperous, particularly from 1877 to 1880 and 1887 to 1892. At its height Tuscarora grew to an estimated 3,000, attracting people from depressed regional mining districts. The thriving town held considerable promise until mining depleted the ore bodies. Tuscarora’s population declined dramatically beginning in the late 1890s.
In 1966, Dennis and Julie Parks moved to Tuscarora and established an internationally famous pottery shop and school. Two decades later, twentieth-century mining technology made local low grade ores profitable, and open pit mining threatened the historic town. A handful of residents remain in Tuscarora.
Suggested Reading:
Shawn Hall. Old Heart of Nevada: Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Elko County. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1998.
Myron Angel, ed.. History of Nevada 1881. Oakland: Thompson and West, 1881.
Delamar is a ghost town near the center of Lincoln County that prospered from mining for about a decade after 1892. At a time when Nevada was in the middle of its “twenty year depression,” the discovery of gold ore was highly promising. Delamar was a modest prelude to the discovery and production of gold at Goldfield a decade later.
Initially called the Ferguson District, the town was renamed for Capt. J. R. DeLamar, who invested in the district in 1894. During the next five years this region was one of the most productive in the state. Yet its ore bodies were shallow and rapidly depleted. Production and prosperity declined after 1900, and most output had ceased by 1909.
Delamar became notorious in Nevada mining lore because of the experience with “Delamar dust,” the thin white powder that flew into the underground air when miners drilled with the new pneumatically powered machines. These early power tools “drilled dry”โno water was forced through the drill to subdue the dust. After a few months of such work, miners suffered from silicosis and most of them died in agony. State laws were soon enacted to require changes in the drilling process.
Suggested Reading:
James W. Hulse. Lincoln County, Nevada: The History of a Mining Region, 1864-1909. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1971.
