New Mexico Mining Museum
While many mining museums commemorate the collection of precious metals, the New Mexico Mining Museum in Grants highlights a material that only gained value in the mid-20th century: uranium. Located 78 miles west of Albuquerque, Grants, New Mexico has experienced many booms, from railway to logging to carrots. But when a local Navajo shepherd named Paddy Martinez discovered uranium ore in nearby Haystack Mesa in 1950, Grants was flooded with uranium prospectors and experienced a mining boom spanning the 1950s to the 1980s.