Butte County
Biographies
EDGAR BIRD RUGH
EDGAR BIRD RUGH.--A member of old pioneer family with most interesting and instructive traditions, and a county officer who is as impartial as he is courageous and kindly, Edgar Bird Rugh, constable and jailer, has long enjoyed both the esteem and the good-will of his fellow-citizens. For miles around everybody likes Ed. Rugh. Born at Nimshew, Butte County, May 1, 1867, he is the son of Saul Rugh, a native of Blairsville, Pa., and a gunsmith by trade, who was married in Ohio to Miss Rebecca Bird, of Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio. Her father, Ralph Bird, a native of Scotland and a sea captain, was a pioneer in Butte County, having come to Oroville about 1850, and here he resided until he died, in 1873. Bird Street in Oroville is named after him. He had a hotel here, and as a hotel-keeper he was popular. Saul Rugh, after marrying, removed to Galena, Ill., and he also lived in Davenport, Iowa, off and on until he crossed the plains.
As soon as he was able to do so, Saul Rugh returned east for his wife and daughter, and again crossed the plains to bring them to the promised land. He lived first at Ione, in Amador County, and then he went to Georgetown, afterwards to Inskip, at the forks of the Butte. After that, he pitched his tent in Nimshew, Butte County, and there opened a gun shop; but after following mining with its ups and downs he died at Nimshew, aged seventy-five years. His wife passed away in her seventy-third year, the mother of six children: Mrs. Burk, who resides at Chico, was the eldest, then came Mrs. J. H. Mansfield, and after that Aubrey, who lives at Nimshew; Belle, who died at Chico; Erba, who died when she was eleven months of age; and the youngest is the subject of our sketch.
Educated at the public schools of the district in which he was brought up, Edgar Bird Rugh followed mining for a while and then ran the Nimshew Hotel, after that taking charge of the Bader Hotel, and then, in 1892, of the Magalia and also of the Langworth, all in the same district and during the winter of 1893-94. Once again he conducted the Bader Hotel and then ran the Magalia, and when the Butte County railroad was built, in 1903, he took hold of the Langworth Hotel for the second time.
Mr. Rugh received a mining claim in a channel, from his father’s estate, and sold it for a thousand dollars to the Nimshew Gold Mining Company, which spent forty thousand dollars in working it during seven years and took out $275,000 worth of the precious dust. Then they came to a barren spot and they have never again found the rich deposits once so profitable. During 1903-04, Mr. Rugh ran the Bader Hotel, and then came to Nimshew for the Nimshew Gold Mining Company, where he was night-boss for a time. Then he returned to the Nimshew Hotel.
In 1910 he came to Oroville for permanent location, and soon identified himself with the police force. A Republican in party politics, he was elected constable, in November, 1914, of Ophir Township, to serve for four years, and took office in January, 1915. He is also Deputy Sheriff under the able Sheriff W. R. Riddle, as he was Deputy Sheriff under Sheriff Webber. Since January, 1915, he has also been jailer, by appointment of Sheriff Riddle; and in this capacity, as well as in the performance of his other official duties, Mr. Rugh is known not only as a wide-awake officer, but as one who tempers justice with mercy, and in dealing with those in his keeping never forgets humane considerations and the great value of sympathy and confidence.
On September 22, 1889. Mr. Rugh was married at Nimshew to
Miss Elizabeth Herbert, who was born at Cherokee; and by her he has had two
children: Genevieve, now Mrs. H. Gilbert, of Oroville; and Herbert, in his last
year at high school when he was drowned while swimming, aged eighteen years. In
fraternal life, Mr. Rugh is a Moose.
Transcribed by Vicky
Walker, 2/15/08.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 732-733, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Vicky
Walker.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies