The Ruby River was called the Passamari by the Shoshoni Indians and the Stinking Water by miners in the early 1860's, and it was later mistakenly renamed the Ruby even though the gems found along it were actually garnets. After gold was discovered in Alder Gulch in 1863, the road through the valley connecting Virginia City and Bannock became a haunt of prospectors, road agents, and vigilantes and eventually became known as the Vigilante Trail. During the 1920’s, distinctive signs bearing the vigilante numbers 3-7-77 on a blue, white, and red background marked the trail. Beginning in 1899 and continuing for twenty years, gold dredging operations left the large gravel piles to the west as tailings. The Conrey Placer Mining Company operated monster dredge boats that churned the gulch inside-out, creating huge piles of gravel where only a tangle of scrub brush and stunted trees could grow. This was the final chapter of placer mining in Alder Gulch, and the gold mined by the dredges financed Harvard University in the early 20th century.