Lowjack,
WW2 shut them down.
Initially they were losing miners to war metal mines which were able to pay more due to skyrocketing prices. Remember gold was fixed at $35.
Then altogether when executive order L 208 shut down all US gold mines so the miners would be forced into war metal mines.
After WW2 wages had doubled and gold remained fixed in price so the economics of gold mining made the Ruby's profit margin shrink, plus after several years of neglect it would have cost more to reopen the mine.
They were still mining and upgrading the mine back in late 1941. On Nov 6th 1941 they completed a major costly upgrade "the Lawry shaft" into the upper black channel over 1 mile upstream from the Big Bend. But they had to close down in early 1942. Best fully intended to keep mining the Ruby but major things took place that prevented that from happening.
My estimation is they only removed half the gravel in the black channel at best and possibly only 30%. Out of that they took over 50,000 ounces. Seems likely to me that there are several tens of thousands ounces left for sure in this one channel.
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