Please remember to exercise caution when exploring Nevada's Ghost Towns & Mining Camps. Open shafts, drifts going into mountainsides, and old buildings, are all DANGEROUS. Be aware of your surroundings, and let someone know where you are, especially if your plans change.

Ruth

Directions: via SR 44, 2 miles southwest of its junction with US 50 at a point 5 miles northwest of Ely.

"Ore was discovered at the Ruth claim just before 1900, and exploration and development after 1903 led to the founding of a settlement of tents and shacks near the main mine. In 1904 the Nevada Consolidated Copper Co. began explorations in earnest after building an experimental mill at the mouth of the main shaft. During the next year the company acquired Copper Flat and adjacent properties. With increased development, Ruth by 1905 had a modest commercial district, which included a post office that was established in February 1904.

A boarding house bunkers a hospital and other company buildings were built, and all utilities were provided by the Nevada Consolidated. Ruth soon became the second largest company town in the district, dwarfed only by McGill, a pleasant place to live. The population more than doubled in the next decade.

At first, the major copper deposits of the Nevada Consolidated were mined underground but in the summer of 1907 steam shovels began stripping the overburden from the area above the Eureka Mine. Within three years a large oval pit had taken place to form a large Liberty Pit. The Ruth mine continued to be developed underground.

Until 1858 the liberty pit was partly owned by the Kennecott Copper Corporation (Nevada Consolidate Copper Corporation before 1943) and the Consolidated Copper mines, but in that year Kennecott acquired full ownership. Inside the pit were fourteen miles of railroad, which operated until the pit trains were replaced in 1958 by trucks.

The town of Ruth attained its peak population over 2,200 people just before the Depression. Scattered over the hillsides were attractive houses, which in many cases had to be moved when mining operations were extended. Around 1855 all buildings were relocated in the present site called New Ruth to allow for block caving of ore in the new Deep Shaft. In 1970 about 600 people lived a Ruth while at the old site is the Ruth pit. That huge excavation which was started in June 1968 will by 1971 become the center of Kennecott mining operations after removal of sixty million tons of overburden."

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