Sunday July 2, 2023 ~ Last week’s article ended with a little history on the Ruby Mine (aka Guatemala) located at the northern edge of the Alleghany Mining District. This morning I did some research at rubymine.com. There I saw two familiar names: Walter Lawry and Henry Mott. They were trying to make a go of it in the early 1900s after the big placer boom of the late 1800s. According to the website: “In 1891 newspapers reported the discovery of a Ruby Gold Nugget weighing 201 ounces (almost 17 pounds). A nugget weighing about 90 ounces was reported in 1892. The replica of a Ruby specimen from the same period weighing about 180 ounces is in the collection of the California State Mining and Mineral Museum in Mariposa, California.” Rock Creek was teeming with miners in the 1850s and 60s. They followed the path of gold nuggets up Slug Canyon to the Ruby Mine area then known as Rock Creek City [paraphrased].
Ruby Mine 1930s. Bunkhouse center left. According to a USGS report 40 men resided there in 1941 before War Production Order L-208 closed the mine in 1942.
As kids, we were told of Rock Creek City and that it even had a bowling alley! Not a trace of the “city” remained in 1975 but it definitely captured our imaginations. In # 14 I mentioned that the move to the woods had a profound effect on all of us. Coming from the urban environs of southern California made us more acutely aware of the wonder of living in the woods than if we had lived there all along.
School was out for the summer and the parents (Bells and Halls) gave us a couple of ground rules: stay in Rock Creek canyon and be home by dark. That was it! The creek rule was especially important because we always knew how to get home, go to the creek and walk either upstream or down depending upon the direction of our departure. At lunchtime we went to whichever house was closest. We were usually home by dinnertime.
The old man mentioned last week and his wife who I will refer to as “The old lady” summered in the big house on the Guatemala claim on Rock Creek (now just a shell). The old lady would sit by the window playing solitaire all day. She wrote down the license plate number of every vehicle that passed (few and far between). She was mortified at the freedom that our parents gave us. Without fail if we wandered by her house she would yell: “You kids get home! You are going to be eaten by a mountain lion!” We never took this seriously. We usually had our dogs with us and we always felt safe.
Article by Rae Bell Arbogast, published in The Mountain Messenger in July of 2023. Shared with permission. The Mountain Messenger
Comments