Is Tuscarora, Nevada abandoned?

Not quite — about a dozen people live there, anchored by the Tuscarora Pottery School founded in 1966. It's a living remnant inside a genuine 1870s silver camp.

What was Tuscarora's Chinatown?

After the transcontinental railroad was finished in 1869, over a thousand Chinese workers settled in Tuscarora, reworking placer ground and building one of the largest Chinese communities in Nevada's mining era.

Can you visit the pottery school?

The school runs residencies and workshops rather than drop-in hours, but visitors passing through can usually see the grounds — check ahead through the school's contact page.

Tuscarora, NV Ghost Town — History, Map & What Remains

The story

Tuscarora began as a placer gold camp in 1867 and boomed properly when silver was struck on Mount Blitzen in 1876. At its height the district held several thousand people — including one of Nevada's largest Chinese communities, over a thousand strong, many of them veterans of the Central Pacific construction crews who reworked the placer ground the earlier rush had abandoned.

The silver thinned through the 1880s and the camp declined in the usual slow steps: mills idle, merchants gone, post office holding on. Unlike most of its peers, Tuscarora never quite reached zero.

Its strange afterlife began in 1966, when the painter-turned-potter Dennis Parks moved in and founded the Tuscarora Pottery School. The school still draws students from around the world to a semi-ghost town of weathered houses, a dozen residents, and kilns among the ruins.

What remains today

Occupied and abandoned houses mixed along the original streets, mill ruins and mine dumps on Mount Blitzen, the cemetery, and the working pottery school.

Questions from the field

Is Tuscarora, Nevada abandoned?: Not quite — about a dozen people live there, anchored by the Tuscarora Pottery School founded in 1966. It's a living remnant inside a genuine 1870s silver camp.
What was Tuscarora's Chinatown?: After the transcontinental railroad was finished in 1869, over a thousand Chinese workers settled in Tuscarora, reworking placer ground and building one of the largest Chinese communities in Nevada's mining era.
Can you visit the pottery school?: The school runs residencies and workshops rather than drop-in hours, but visitors passing through can usually see the grounds — check ahead through the school's contact page.

From the field

The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.

Stamp your passport

Check in at Tuscarora — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.

File a field report

Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.

Add photographs

Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Tuscarora's permanent record.

Reports and photos are reviewed before joining the record.

No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.

Sources consulted

— USGS GNIS feature 844463
— Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology — Tuscarora district
— Northeastern Nevada Museum, Elko — Tuscarora Chinatown collections