The Ruth Mine

The Ruth Mine is probably the most intact mining camp left in the Argus Mountains, just north of Trona, California. Several mines have been located here, all meeting the same imminent fate. The first mine here was the Grahm-Jones Mine, located in 1889 by Doug Grahn and S.S. Jones. The duo worked the mine until 1917, when Jones pulled out. Grahm worked alone until 1930 when two speculators gave Grahm a hefty grubstake fund from Fred Austin and one Dr. Evans to save the mine from the tax bill. Unfortunately Grahm was robbed of his money and died a week later.

In 1937 Austin and Evans leased the mine to the Burton Brothers, who renamed it the Ruth mine and constructed much of the camp that remains today. These brothers founded the prosperous and massive Tropico Mine near Rosamond, California and had the finances to install the massive 40-ton cyanide mill at the Ruth Mine.

The mine was very prosperous and by 1932 63 people were living in the camp, with a school that taught twenty-two students. The Saloon up on the hill was open every friday and holidays, with the owners thinking learning was better than drinking. The mill was very busy, producing up to seventy tons of ore every day, with additional ore coming in from nearby mines in the Homewood Canyon Mining District.

The beginning of the end came for Ruth in 1942 when FDR issued the executive order L-208, closing all unessential mining for the duration of the war. After the war, attempts to reboot mining continued into the early 1950s and sparse activity in the '70s, but never yielded anything as great as before the war. For several decades, the camp was in the hands of a private owner who kept a permanent caretaker on site, and eventually the BLM wrestled the camp into its hands. After the transfer, the condition rapidly declined, with two buildings burned down and vandalism skyrocketing. In 2011 the BLM began removing the massive mill and tailings due to arsenic contamination, and now there is a massive scar where these relics of the past once lay.

This is the exterior of the schoolhouse, with the yard just out of
frame to the left.

The interior of the schoolhouse contains some desks and posters, with books and the like scattered about. I did not examine the books on the tables to see if they were original or not. 

On the far side of the schoolhouse from the door was the "Museum," a dark room in the back filled with various desert knickknacks and rocks, including a bighorn sheep skull. It was too dark to take any pictures of sadly.

I was surprised to find these posters still on the linoleum brick wall. Mrs. Rayburn (the teacher)'s apartment was on the other side of this wall. Nothing of interest remains there.

I really liked this poster of the "Star-Spangles Banner lyrics.

Looking up the hillside at the old workings (blasted/gated) and the site of the mill on the left.
The building in center is the old caretaker's house I think.

The exteriors of the buildings were mostly all the same, corrugated metal siding.

This is the interior of the Saloon, with cooler on the left and bar in center. There were a
few empty bottles lying around and some gross couches in the corner.

Another view of the inside of the saloon.

This is the kitchen of the large house on top of the hill. Much of it was a mess, but still in good shape.

One of the coolest things here, an old TV from the seventies I think.The whole house was decorated in decor from this era.

What rural house is complete without a gun rack?

The porch in front of the house

Looking into the gated lower portal of the Ruth Mine. There was a strong smell of something unhealthy blowing out of here, smelled like chlorine or something deadly.

Need I say more? This building seems to be the subject of restoration from the BLM.

The interior is either gutted or the building being completely rebuilt.

Panorama of the entire site.

Overview of the camp. The rest of the buildings didn't contain anything of note. 

This was a site that I had known about for some time, and still don't even have marked on my Google Earth placemarks. A "spur of the moment visit," it may be said. It's a quiet camp, in a quiet canyon. Remains of its noisy past are strewn all over the canyon here, but now the noise is gone, as are the people. However quiet the town becomes, the legacy of its former glory will remain forever preserved in this vast and empty desert.