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Ruby Cemetery
Okanogan County, Washington

Lat: 48° 30' 31"N, Lon: 119° 43' 20"W
T35N R25E Section 29

Transcribed by Maggie Rail, © Oct 01, 2003, last edited Jul 20, 2007 [mrail@asisna.com]. Total records = 3.

Ruby cemetery is about 2 miles southwest from the Conconully Hwy on Salmon Creek Road. It is off the road to the right and up a very steep hill, coming from Conconully. The town of Ruby is on further west and south.

The town of Ruby ceased to exist back in 1892 when the price of silver dropped rapidly. I am told that a forest fire swept through the area a few years later, burning every marker that was in this cemetery.

According to a sign in Ruby, the town was placed on the state register in March of 1971 by the Governor's Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

It seems they did not use stone markers, but rather they used flat wooden boards or wooden crosses to mark the burial spots in the Ruby cemetery. Buzz Berney and I check all over the area and could not come upon anything that seemed like a marker for a burial site.

I walked and surveyed this cemetery on Sep 27, 2003 along with Buzz Berney, who owns part of the land this cemetery is situated on. The rest of it is on BLM land.

It was not a fun sport to reach this cemetery. There was no road up to it, so it meant a climb of some distance to reach the top of the hill, which was quite flat. I felt like it was at least a mile climb. I later found out it was about 123ft.

This measurment was taked by Daryl Jacobson, who is researching the area. He said the elevation was 2,060' for the cemetery, 1,937' for the road below.

Fred Pflugrath did some searching for me and he came up with three names of people who died in Ruby. As far as we can tell from further research. This was the only cemetery started in this area, when these three died, so I am listing them as buried in this cemetery.

- Maggie Rail

George, Estelle, d. Feb 09, 1892, age: 44yr, female
Hancock, Wm J, d. Nov 18, 1892, age: 32yr, male
Smith, L L, d. Jun 29, 1891, age: 25yr, male