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Christopher and Tynes
Stan Christopher (left) and Tommy Tynes (right) were two of the more colorful caretakers of Ruby. (Christopher photo courtesy of The Connection; Tynes photo from private files of Tallia Pfrimmer Cahoon) |
Column No. 42
Bob Ring, Al Ring, Tallia Pfrimmer Cahoon
Over the years since private owners took over the ghost town, the “Caretakers”
of Ruby have been the only full time residents. Yes, there were occasional
efforts to mine the tailings dump, and for a few years hippies populated Ruby,
but these were sporadic and relatively short-term occupations.
The owners needed someone onsite to manage and protect the property, open and
close the gate for visitors, including mining and metallurgical people in the
early years, and public visitors more recently. The caretaker collected entry
fees if applicable.
A hippie may have been the first official Ruby caretaker. According to Pat
Frederick, original private owner Richard Frailey made an attempt to enlist
hippies as caretakers:
“So he told one couple that they could have another couple living there besides
them. … A few months later when he went back down, there were twenty-some people
living there. And that must have gone on for at least six months or maybe a
year. … He eventually kicked them all out because they were being destructive.”
Since then, there have been a number of caretakers at Ruby. As Mary Noon
Kasulaitis put it, writing in Arivaca’s The Connection:
“Some caretakers have been prospectors, who found a paid house and home near to
the prospective gold mine. … Some … have been artists who appreciated the hills
for their visual beauty and the time and space for artistic development. There
have been medicine women, crazy men, hippies, and loners. There have been
drunks, druggies and artists. All kinds of people, some more colorful than
others.”
It wasn’t easy for Ruby’s owners to find caretakers. After all, Ruby was very
isolated, and provided at best a dilapidated old mining camp house for a home.
There was no electricity, no heat, no running water, and no telephone, except in
later years, when a caretaker could hike to the top of nearby hill with a cell
phone. And then there were the animals and insects, including rattlesnakes and
rabid skunks.
So what kind of person would be a caretaker, not only survive the Spartan
existence, but relish it. Here are a couple of examples of colorful Ruby
caretakers of the past.
Stan Christopher worked for H. A. Kinnison and the K & K Mining Company during
the last attempt to reclaim gold and silver from Ruby’s tailings dump. When
Kinnison gave up and left in 1988, Christopher stayed on to be caretaker.
Stan Christopher was an artist, a naturalist, and a builder. For eight years, he
was the sole resident of Ruby. He produced 150 oil paintings, studied Mexican
free-tail bats that populated the old abandoned nearby mine tunnels, and
hand-built a 36-foot sailboat. The all-wood boat took three years to build.
Christopher took the completed boat out of Ruby on a flatbed truck on the Ruby
Road through Arivaca.
During his time in Ruby, Christopher had to deal with irate drunks with guns,
demanding access to Ruby; swat team invasions, looking for drug runners;
rattlesnakes in the outhouse; and being bitten on the face, while sleeping, by a
rabid skunk. But with all of this, Christopher professed to love it. According
to Pat Frederick, “Stan was a wonderful caretaker.”
About the time that Stan Christopher left Ruby in 1996, Tommy Tynes attended a
reunion of former Ruby residents. Hearing that Ruby was going to be short a
caretaker, Tynes told Pat and Howard Frederick that he’d like the job.
Tommy Tynes worked for the state of Arizona as a heavy machinery lift operator
for 36 years and looked at the Ruby caretaker job as a good retirement activity.
Tynes was a responsible, caring, history-loving caretaker for four years. His
goal was to open a self-operated museum on the property. Howard Frederick said
of him:
“People just thought the world of him and he was always there. … always on the
job.
“He was the kind of person that there was a crisis, he was right on top of
things. … [after an automobile accident in the Ruby area] Tommy immediately was
up the hill with his cell phone, calling paramedics, getting helicopter in, and
all on his own back.”
In 2000 Stealth Enterprises hired Tommy Tynes to bulldoze a better road to the
nearby Yellow Jacket mine sight. Tynes’ long service to two of the better-known
mines in the Oro Blanco Mining District ended with his death on February 24,
2004.
(Sources: Interview with Pat and Howard Frederick, The Connection, “Remembering
Ruby” website)
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Christopher and Tynes
Stan Christopher (left) and Tommy Tynes (right) were two of the more colorful caretakers of Ruby. (Christopher photo courtesy of The Connection; Tynes photo from private files of Tallia Pfrimmer Cahoon) |