The area surrounding Nelson and Eldorado Canyon was home to the ancient Ancient Puebloan Indians, and then later to the Paiutes and Mojave tribes before Spaniards arrived in 1775. The Spaniards soon found small amounts of silver, but it wasn’t until the 1850s that large amounts of gold were found in one of the first major gold strikes in Nevada. The Nelson area is said to have yielded over 500 million dollars in ore over nearly a century. In fact the famous Techatticup Mine remained active until 1943, and produced more than 2.5 million dollars worth of gold, silver, copper, and lead.