North Cascades

MARKETING THE WILDERNESS: DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISES

Ruby and Slate Creek Mining Districts

MINERAL RESOURCES: MINING

Scougale

Ruby Mountain flume, built in the late 19th century
was three miles long.
(Callahan Collection, Seattle, Washington)

About 1896 F.J. Scougale worked fourteen claims near the mouth of Ruby Creek. Using a small hydraulic plant he recovered $950 worth of gold nuggets. [95] These claims, totaling 420 acres, were later purchased by the Ruby Hydraulic Gold Mining Company with the intent to work the placer ground. The company constructed several miles of ditch and flume, building a sawmill to cut all the necessary lumber. The sawmill was located on the north side of Ruby Mountain and was powered by Happy Creek. The sawn lumber was transported from the mill down to Ruby Creek via a small dry flume, and was used to build a larger water flume on Ruby Creek. The Ruby flume carried water from a nearby creek to operate the company's hydraulic equipment. The sawmill site is still obvious today although the mill machinery has since been removed; cut lumber stacked adjacent to the creek, pieces of rusting metal and equipment, a hand-dug trench, and the remains of former structures are all evidence of the mill operation. Remnants of the dry flume can still be traced from upper Happy Creek down the mountainside in a northeasterly direction to the highway. Along with the flume and sawmill, the company erected a hydraulic plant, a cookhouse, bunkhouses, an office building, a tool house, and a blacksmith shop. [96]

Despite an investment of $300,000 in 1906, the company eventually faced failure. The buildings were abandoned and the original cookhouse burned. It was later replaced by a new structure which became the roadhouse known as the Ruby Creek Inn. [97]. All of the mining site was flooded by the backwaters of the Skagit River in 1947. [98].