This colorful historic camp originated with an 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, named after a tribe in the Iroquois Confederation.
STATE HISTORICAL MARKER No. 48