Ruby City is a
ghost town
A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...
in
Owyhee County
Owyhee County ( ) is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2020 census, the population was 11,913. The county seat is Murphy, and its largest city is Homedale. In area it is the second-largest county in I ...
,
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...
, United States. It was located along
Jordan Creek about a mile below
Silver City.
Ruby City was a
mining town
A mining community, also known as a mining town or a mining camp, is a community that houses miners. Mining communities are usually created around a mine or a quarry.
Historical mining communities Australia
* Ballarat, Victoria
* Bendig ...
settled in November 1863.
The town was the first
county seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...
of Owyhee County and was born to serve the rich
mines in the vicinity.
''
The Owyhee Avalanche'', first newspaper in Owyhee County, started in Ruby City in 1865, but was moved to nearby Silver City just over a year later. The
post office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...
, which opened in 1864, closed in 1867.
In 1867, the county seat was also moved to Silver City, along with the better buildings and the end was in sight for Ruby City.
Nowadays, only remains of a cemetery mark the town's location.
In popular culture
The 1993 Western film ''
The Ballad of Little Jo'' was set in Ruby City, Idaho, where
Jo Monaghan eventually settles down.
See also
*
List of ghost towns in Idaho
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
References
Geography of Owyhee County, Idaho
Ghost towns in Idaho
Silver City Historic District (Idaho)
Populated places on the National Register of Historic Places in Idaho
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