(continued)

"A Presbyterian minister named Anderson preached in town (Conconully) tonight." Under the date of August 14, 1893, Gubser wrote:

A young Presbyterian minister gave me a short call today. He is stationed at Lomiston (Loomis) until the last of next month, when he intends to return to college. He preaches in half a dozen places. He belongs over the line but does nearly all his work on this side. He says his best congregation is at Carpenter’s about ten miles below Ruby.

Like many other frontier camps, Ruby figured in an Indian uprising. This occurred in January, 1891, and had its beginning in the murder of S.S. Cole, a freighter. One of the alleged Indian murderers was killed in a gun battle by a deputy sheriff. The second Indian, a certain young Stephen, was lodged in jail at Conconully. A lynching party broke into the jail, secured Stephen, and hanged him. The Indian scare followed this incident. What was really done to anger the Indians is a phase of the story that has never been clear. People present in the Okanogan country at the time of the uprising believed in later years that the hostile attitude of the Indians was overestimated and that it amounted to a "feverish dream" among the whites. According to one source, the Okanogan braves were angered because the man who transported the body of Stephen from Conconully to a Catholic cemetery at St. Mary’s Mission sat on the coffin, which was carried on a bobsled. The settlers believed the Indians were preparing for war and asked acting Governor Charles E. Laughton for troops. "The women and children were gathered together by night and taken to Ruby, where it was planned to barricade them in the Fourth of July mine in case of necessity." A conference was held with the Indians, however, and further trouble was averted.

As has been indicated, the early 90’s saw the beginning of the decline of Ruby. A number of reasons may be given, chief among them the fall in the price of silver. No doubt this factor served to bring to a head the final doom of the camp. Ruby dwindled rapidly from a once prosperous mining town of several hundred inhabitants to a mere several dozen by the autumn of 1894. There were still a store, a hotel, a fine school building, and about a hundred dwelling houses. The mines on Ruby Hill, however, worked for three months in 1893, were shut down. The ore had been concentrated at the mill in Ruby and shipped in the form of concentrate by wagon at twenty dollars a ton to Coulee City, thence by railway via Spokane to Tacoma for reduction and refining. But after the fall in silver prices, freight charges ate up the profits so the mines were closed.

Viewed in the perspective of 114 years, moreover, one of the main reasons for the decline of Ruby seems to have been a definite lack of high grade ore, whatever the price of silver. Hope was continually expressed that before long the district would become one of the richest of its kind, but that hope never fulfilled. That which bred the camp was to cause its destruction. The plea for a railroad was never answered, nor were local road connections ever such as to permit speedy transportation. These three things, then, the fall in the price of silver, the absence of a sufficient amount of paying ore, and the lack of cheap transportation, were the main factors in the destruction of Ruby.

That the business enterprises of the town early suffered as a result of the decline in mining may be witnessed by an article in the Conconully Okanogan Outlook, April 29, 1892:

The Ruby Miner has resumed publication again under the new management. F.J. Long, formerly employed in the mechanical department of the paper, has taken the helm and will try to steer its course so as to avoid the shoals and breakers so frequently encountered on the sea of journailsm.We wish him every success in his undertaking.

The life of the Ruby Miner under its new leadership must have been very short indeed.

There is an incident concerning Ruby that is more legendary than factual. True or not, it has added color to the story of the town and for that is written down here. A certain miner had been "rolled" and robbed in Ruby. He is said to have stationed himself on a hill overlooking the town and to have cursed it so all could hear. "May you be burned, drowned, and burned again." If this story is true and has not suffered the distortions of time, it is rather interesting in the light of the events that followed.

In 1894 the flood waters that washed away a portion of the town of Conconully came down Salmon Creek to Ruby. The people had been warned and everyone got to a point of safety. The damage done to the town was not extensive. A few houses were washed away. Most important of all (in the minds of the more thirsty Rubyites) was the fact that the brewery was damaged by the flood water.

From the time of the flood until 1900 there are very few records of happenings in Ruby. It is known that each succeeding year found fewer and fewer people there. Some of the miners sought other fields, many of them went north into British Columbia. Others started farming in nearby vicinity. Business and professional men sought other towns.

The spirit that Ruby had known in the days of its greatest activity must have stayed alive through its waning years. When only three inhabitants were left it is related that a city government was sustained. Austin Mires passed through Ruby in 1898. Years later he told newspapermen of the trip. Part of his story is quoted here.

At this time, 1898, as we passed through Ruby it held just three inhabitants-Ned Paine and two other parties. One was called the hotel keeper and the other had the livery stable. They were holding down the city government. Paine was mayor, one of the others was the city clerk and the other, marshal. On August 28, 1899, I passed through Ruby again with my family on our way to Republic and the town was entirely deserted. The buildings were all in tact (sic), but there was not a single inhabitant.

In all probability, the town did not remain intact for long. Ranchers in the vicinity tore down and hauled away many of the buildings. About 1900, fire aided the destruction which had already taken place. By 1904, only a "few buildings, riddled and tottering," still stood, "monuments" to mark the spot where once this Boom Town stood.

Now in 1941, the "monuments" which the historian saw in 1904 are gone. Before many more years have passed there will be no trace of the camp that Guy Waring called "the Babylon of the West."

Today even the ghosts are gone!

About The Author: Loretta Louis (Mrs. Clifford Wolf) came to Okanogan in 1917 when her parents took up a homestead on the reservation. After normal school at Ellensburg, her first teaching was at Pine Grove school in Pleasant Valley. Both Judge William C. and publisher O.H. Woody encouraged her to research and write about Ruby, and she did her master’s thesis on it in 1941. Now married and mother of three, she and her family live near Colton.

Business In Downtown Ruby