Ruth began as a settlement for workers of the White Pine Copper Company in 1903. It derived its name from the Ruth mining claim which was named for Ruth McDonald, daughter of the original owner of the mining claim.[5]
In 1905, Daniel C. Jackling "evaluated a low-grade copper prospect", which he turned into "an impressive open-pit and satellite cave (the Veteran Mine)." Jackling went on to become president of the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company.[6]
By 1910 the settlement was already established a small distance from the first site. Ruth was a company town for the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company: the houses belonged to the mine and the city and were administered by them. Saloons and bordellos were not permitted in the company town but were plentiful in the neighboring community of Riepetown.
A mine explosion in Ruth on July 12, 1912, killed ten people. In 1929 there was another explosion set off by dynamite blasts. 2 men were killed with a third injured. One of the killed men was Giovanni Simonetta from Cortale, Italy. [7]
In 1919 Ruth was the site of a labor dispute when 150 copper miners walked out demanding higher wages. Although some claimed the strike was instigated by the Industrial Workers of the World the leaders were actually from the Western Federation of Miners.[8]
At the beginning of the Great Depression, Ruth had almost 2,300 inhabitants.[9]
Nevada Consolidated Copper Co. was taken over by Kennecott Copper Corporation in 1933.[7]
Ruth ceased being a company town in 1955 when the houses were sold to the John W. Galbreath Company. Occupants were given the opportunity to purchase the homes they had been renting. Around this time the community was moved two miles north to make way for expansion of the Deep Ruth mine.[7]
In 1978 Kennecott closed the mines in Ruth,[10] which went into decline. The elementary school closed in 1986.
BHP reopened the mine in 1996. From 1996 to 1999, the BHP Nevada Railroad was based here. The mine closed again in 1999.
Ruth was featured in the fourth season of the Netflix original series Stranger Things as the location of the NINA project, which is housed in a converted missile silo.[11]
Geologic structure map showing local mining operations with Ruth in the top center and Rib Hill in the bottom center. Ruth Pit is to the right and the Veteran Pit is to the left. The hatched area indicates traces of copper while the shaded area indicates traces of gold.
Charles H. Russell, 20th governor of Nevada, worked briefly in Ruth ca. 1927.
Ruth experiences a semi-arid climate (Bsk) with hot summers and cold winters, typical of most small towns in the Great Basin. Due to Ruth's substantial elevation and aridity, the diurnal temperature variation is large. Nights are cool, even in the summer, and frosts can occur any time of the year, although rare in summer months. Daytime highs in the winter tend to be a few degrees above freezing, but nights can be bitterly cold.
Climate data for Ruth, Nevada, 1991–2020 normals, 1958-2020 extremes: 6858ft (2090m)
^Elliott, Russell (1966). Nevada's twentieth-century mining boom: Tonopah, Goldfield, Ely. Reno: University of Nevada Press. p. 344. ISBN0-87417-133-4.
^Charles Caldwell Hawley (2014). A Kennecott Story. The University of Utah Press. p. 95.
^ abcElliott, Russell (1990). Growing up in a company town: A family in the copper camp of McGill, Nevada. Reno: Nevada Historical Society. p. 200.
^Elliott, Russell (1961). Radical labor in the Nevada mining booms: 1900-1920. Carson City, NV: State Printing Office.
