The Gold Rush to Ruby Creek
A local merchant receives a singular order for gold scales from miners in the North Cascades, signaling a major mineral boom on the Upper Skagit.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A merchant of this city has just received an order, from a party of miners on Ruby Creek, for six gold scales. This tells its own story. Miners don't send for gold scales unless they have use for them. There are now miners in from the mountains, which indicates that work has commenced along the river, and we may expect soon to hear of a new strike and a general rush for the diggings. A old Cassiar miner, who has been prospecting the past two months in the Skagit mines, says they are as good if not better than anything found in the Cassiar country, with this advantage: that it will cost the miner one half less to get in his supplies, which is a very great consideration. There are now three steamers running to Sauk City: the Chehalis, Josephine, and the Nellie. The Daisy, Capt. Parker’s new boat, will be finished in a few days and will also be put on the route, making the fourth steamer plying between here and the interior.
“Miners don't send for gold scales unless they have use for them.”
The 1880s Skagit River gold rush mirrors the perpetual cycles of boom-and-bust development in the Pacific Northwest. Just as miners once flocked to the high country based on the rumor of a strike, today's regional economy remains tethered to the rapid, often volatile influx of resources and labor-dependent growth.
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