Garnets, Vigilantes and Gold Dredges

The board's last line has a short chain behind it. The Harvard geologist Nathaniel Shaler persuaded Gordon McKay, a Boston shoe manufacturer, to organize the Conrey Placer Mining Company in 1898, and its six connected-bucket dredges worked the seven miles of Alder Gulch below Virginia City, moving more than 37 million cubic yards of ground. McKay's will left the controlling interest to Harvard, which drew income from the dredging until it ended in the early 1920s. The gems that misnamed the river had their turn too: a company moved to mine the garnets in 1995.

What the plaque says

Garnets, Vigilantes and Gold Dredges The Ruby River was called the Passamari by the Shoshoni Indians and the Stinking Water by the miners in the early 1860's. Later, it was mistakenly renamed the Ruby, although the gems found along its length were actually garnets. The road through the valley that connected Virginia City and Bannack was the haunt of prospectors, road agents and vigilantes after gold was discovered in Alder Gulch in 1863. The road eventually became known as the Vigilante Trail. During the 1920's, distinctive signs with the dreaded vigilante numbers 3-7-77 on a blue, white and red background marked the trail. The large gravel piles to the west are the tailings of gold dredging operations that occurred here over a twenty-year period beginning in 1899. The Conrey Placer Mining Company operated monster dredge boats that literally churned the gulch inside-out, creating huge piles of gravel where only a tangle of scrub brush and stunted trees could grow. It was the final chapter in the history of placer mining in Alder Gulch. The gold mined by the dredges financed Harvard University in the early 20th century.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Virginia City — 6.7 mi
  A gold camp one couple began buying in 1944, and the state bought from their family in 1997.
• Beaverhead Rock — 19 mi
  The hill Sacagawea recognized in August 1805, the first sure sign that her people were close.

More markers nearby

• Adobetown — 4.7 mi
• Gold in Alder Gulch — 4.7 mi
• Nevada City — 5.3 mi
• Robber's Roost — 6.1 mi