Ruby

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

From the record

“Ruby is a ghost town in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, United States. It is situated near the base of Montana Peak in the Pajarita Wilderness, roughly 25 miles west of Rio Rico, and 7 miles north of the Mexico-United States border.”
Wikipedia article Ruby, Arizona, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 51 National Register listings published here for Santa Cruz County · listed in 1975 · category: District.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

Address. N of U.S./Mexico border between Ruby and Montana peaks, Ruby and Vicinity, 85621
When was it listed? April 1975
Category. district
Census division. Nogales
National Register reference number. 75000361 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

61 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 61 fires within 5 miles of Ruby between 1993 and 2020, burning about 19,238 acres in total. 16 started naturally. 3 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	31
Natural	16
Recreation and ceremony	9
Arson/incendiarism	3
Equipment and vehicle use	2

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
30 September 2000	Natural	under an acre	Coronado National Forest	ARIVACA
28 September 2001	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Office	ORO BLANCO
4 August 2018	Natural	20 acres	Coronado National Forest	MURPHY
4 August 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Coronado National Forest	ARIVACA
30 August 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Office	not named
3 August 2011	Natural	22 acres	Coronado National Forest	JAKIE
29 August 2015	Natural	15 acres	Coronado National Forest	AUSTERLITZ
23 August 2016	Recreation and ceremony	25 acres	Coronado National Forest	SAUCITO FIRE

Every fire recorded in Santa Cruz County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 64 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 64 workings within 5 miles of Ruby: 36 past producers, 15 prospects, 6 occurrences, 5 producers. 6 still produce. What was taken out: Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead, Zinc, Gold, Silver, Gold. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Annie Laurie	Lead, Uranium, Copper, Zinc	Prospect	1948
Annie Laurie Prospect	Lead, Zinc, Manganese, Copper, Uranium, Fluorine-Fluorite, Travertine	Occurrence	1948
Arizona Blue Fire Opal	Semiprecious Gemstone	Producer
Big Lode Mine	Gold, Silver, Lead	Past Producer
Choctaw Mine	Lead, Zinc, Silver, Copper, Gold, Bismuth	Past Producer	1893
Choctaw Mine	Zinc, Gold, Silver, Lead	Past Producer
Cramer Mine	Gold, Silver, Copper, Iron, Manganese	Past Producer	Gold, Iron, Silver
Hell's Gate Agate	Marble, Dimension	Unknown
Idaho Mine Group	Silver, Lead, Gold, Zinc, Copper, Antimony, Arsenic	Producer	1914, 1922
Loma De Manganese Mine	Manganese, Silver, Copper	Past Producer	1953

Every working recorded in Santa Cruz County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

1 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Atascosa Lookout House	7.2 miles	1988

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 75000361 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Santa Cruz County	All 51 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.