Ruth, Nevada

Ruth was founded in 1903 as a company town for the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company. The townsite was moved at least twice, the former site(s) being swallowed up in the expansion of the open pit mine. As a company town, saloons and bordellos were not allowed. However, there was a nearby settlement named Riepetown with at least 16 saloons, and who knows how many soiled doves... Riepetown was also somewhat famous for the sheer number of knifings and robberies that went on in the streets. The remnants of Riepetown were demolished in 1995.

Ruth had a long history of miner's strikes, usually violent. At times the town was occupied by the Nevada National Guard as the government always tended to side with the mine owners against the workers. When the Great Depression began, there were about 2,300 residents in Ruth. Business dropped off and didn't pick up again until World War II. There was a market crash again at the end of World War II, then another at the end of the Korean War. The first 3 years of Republican Dwight Eisenhower's presidency were such a financial disaster that mining concerns all over America went out of business, mines shut down and the former miners were unemployed for long periods of time. Nevada Consolidated Copper was bought by the Kennecott Corporation in 1956. Almost immediately the town of Ruth was moved again to make room for expansion of the open pit. Kennecott built a new town and turned it over to White Pine County for administration. Copper mining at Ruth was still strong until the market collapsed again in 1999.