Ruth (Nevada)
Ruth, Nevada, is a mining town founded in 1903 and located about five miles northwest of the city of Ely in White Pine County , Nevada . The place is classified as a town and had about 400 inhabitants in 2005. It's on US-50 .
In 1903, large copper deposits were developed in White Pine County near Ely . At the edge of the first large copper mine, tents and wooden huts were first built into a settlement for the mine workers, which the owner of the mine named after his only daughter, Ruth. With the opening of the Nevada Northern Railway in 1906, copper mining began to boom.
In 1910 the city was rebuilt for the first time a short distance away. Ruth was a company town : the houses belonged to the mine and the town was administered by the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company . Game rooms and brothels were, unlike in other mining settlements, forbidden. In the neighboring settlement of Riepetown , the remains of which were leveled in 1995, there were 16 saloons , knife fights, robbery and brawls were the order of the day. Industrial disputes were also often bloody: in October 1912, three striking workers were killed in shootings with strikebreakers . Nevada's Governor Tasker Oddie declared martial law on Ruth to end the strike.
In 1919 there was another lengthy, this time peaceful labor dispute under the leadership of the Western Federation of Miners and the council-communist- oriented union IWW . At the beginning of the Great Depression , Ruth had 2,300 inhabitants.
The copper mines near Ruth changed hands in 1956. The old town of Ruth was demolished again due to the expansion of the opencast mine. The new owner, Kennecott Corporation , offered residents the opportunity to build a new town with houses at low prices. The new settlement was placed under the county administration. Because of the frequent moves Ruth got the nickname "City travelers" ( traveling town ). Until 1999, copper was mined in open-cast mines under different owners; the mines operated were last 3.2 kilometers long, 1.6 kilometers wide and around 306 meters deep.
However, the mining of copper and the railroad stopped in 1999. Only the railway is operated as a museum railway of the Nevada Northern Railway Museum between Ruth and the neighboring Ely.
Ruth served as the inspiration for Stephen King's Desperation .
Personalities
- Helen Delich Bentley (1923–2016), politician born in Ruth
Web links
- Homepage of the Historical Society of White Pine with photos of the old and new town of Ruth
- Homepage of the museum railway in Ruth
- Ruth's website
Coordinates: 39 ° 17 ′ N , 114 ° 59 ′ W