It proved to be the lowest-grade mine on the hill. They struck a ledge about eighteen feet wide which ran uniformly from wall to wall $14 in gold and silver. John Clonan, Thomas Donan, William Milligan and Thomas Fuller made the original discoveries. Ledges of quartz carrying silver and a small quantity of gold were found in the country rock of granite and gneiss. Fuller, in 1885, built the first cabin on the site of Ruby.įollowing the opening of the Moses reservation the first mineral discoveries were made in the spring of 1886, on Ruby Hill, a steep mountain rising to the height of 3,800 feet above the town. It is possible that miners had squatted in the vicinity previous to the normal opening of the reservation. There is some doubt concerning the exact time and manner of beginning of Ruby. As a result of these discoveries the third mining rush occurred and a number of camps sprang up in what is now Okanogan County. Later mineral discoveries led to the opening to settlement of Moses reservation March 1, 1886, west of the Okanogan River. Ruby City was not the center of the first mining excitement in the Okanogan country, for there were two earlier mining rushes.
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More then 114 years have gone by but the famous mining camp has become little more than a legend. In a few short years a lively mining town had come into being, lived, and died. The remains of several rock foundations may be seen. There is little doubt that this road was once the main street of Ruby for there can still be seen faint traces of fully a dozen excavations in a fairly straight line along the road. Through what was once the center of the town runs a road still in use today. Yet, upon closer scrutiny, the place is unmistakable. Scraggly pine trees have grown up on the once Boom Town site and heavy shrubbery is slowly covering the few remaining foundations. In all probability, the casual observer might drive through the site of the town without realizing he is on ground once famous as one of the chief mining centers of Washington State, and well might this be true. There are two markers to tell the traveler that this was once the site of Ruby City. Thirteen miles north of the town of Okanogan on Salmon Creek there is a place that is probably most aptly described as a wide spot in the road. Ruby: The Life and Death of a Mining Town