The Tri-State Mineral Museum may be small but it is a beautifully curated wing of the Joplin Museum Complex in Joplin, Missouri. The museum collection highlights minerals, mining equipment, and the mining history in the Joplin area’s Tri-State Mining District from the 1870s through the 1960s.
On the corner of Central Avenue and Poplar Street in downtown Bayard, New Mexico, the Bayard Mining Park commemorates Grant County miners with a collection of mining equipment and educational plaques. While the park does not warrant a trip in and of itself, the park, like a fine wine, is paired nicely with a trip…
Pinos Altos may not be the easiest town to locate today, but in it’s day, it was a hub for ranching an mining.
Located in the original Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company headquarters in the center of Bisbee, the Bisbee Mining & Historical Museum preserves the legacy of the “The Queen of the Copper Camps.”
In the basement of the Flandrau Science Center & Planetarium in Tuscon, Arizona is the University of Arizona Mineral Museum. While the footprint of the museum may be small, it contains a core collection of over 35,000 mineral specimens and a micromount collection with over 7,000 additional specimens of crystals too small to appreciate with the naked eye. The collection spans 1,561 different species and 2,000 types of minerals.
The Cullen Hall of Gems And Minerals in Houston, Texas’s Houston Museum of Natural Science sports a world class collection of 750 gem and mineral specimens. The darkened room sets off brilliant crystalline gold samples, along with a 2000 carat crystal emerald, the largest found in North America.
The Chihuahua Desert is the third largest desert in the Western Hemisphere, spanning parts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico. Along with several mountain ranges and dramatic vistas, the desert is home to deposits of lead, zinc, barite, copper, manganese, sulfur, oil, gas, fluorite, talc, potash, water, quarry stone, gypsum, mercury, bentonite, salt, silver,…
Over the month of October, the total number of mining claims on public land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) dropped by 165 claims. This is due to a low number of claims staked in the month—down 93% compared to October 2015—as well as a high number of abandoned claims—up 321% compared to…
Bisbee, Arizona is built along the side of the Mule Mountains. Houses cover the slope from the valley floor nearly to the peak. The roads through Bisbee are narrow, steep, and aging. Many of the highest houses are only accessible by stairs. This was a town established not out of convenience, but out of opportunity. In…
Mining claim activity on public land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management was relatively slow and small but positive over the month of September. While the number of mining claims staked in September 2016 was 80% less than the number staked in September 2015, it remained a positive trend given the 1,416 staked claims…
