Goodbye, Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum

One of Arizona's lesser known attractions is one of its best. Quoting from its understated website, the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum has over "3,000 minerals, rocks, fossils and mining artifacts are on exhibit. Highlighting the collection are the colorful minerals from Arizona's copper mines. Among the spectacular individual specimens on display are an eight-foot specimen of native copper, a large quartz geode - each half weighing 240 pounds, rocks from the first Moon landing, and a fragment of Meteor Crater's meteorite weighing 206 pounds. Exhibits of special interest encompass cases devoted to the lapidary arts featuring cabochons made of minerals from throughout Arizona, faceted gemstones, carved semi-precious bowls and spheres, well-known Arizona specimen localities, displays on mineral crystal systems, habits, causes of color, fulgarites, and fluorescent minerals."

I have seen some of the largest and most impressive displays of minerals in the U.S. and the Arizona museum ranks up there with some of the most spectacular mineral specimens I have seen, including the annual Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. My favorites include a number of stunning examples of dioptase and some other incredible copper minerals. I also enjoy the meteorite collection.There is an impressive collection of fulgarites (fused sand or minerals from lightening strikes) and many other rare and interesting items.

It helps to have a basic understanding of minerals in order to begin to appreciate what you are looking at. It also helps to have gone to a lot of mineral shows so you can appreciate how much money some of these specimens would command if sold on the market.

Unfortunately, the Museum is presently embroiled in a legislative controversy. Please read this blog post entitled "What's Happening to the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum." Essentially, the State passed Arizona House Bill 2251 which will destroy the Museum and which established the 5C Arizona Centennial Museum which is to be constructed in the building currently occupied by the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum. The new museum will purportedly celebrate the 5Cs (citrus, climate, cattle, cotton, & copper) which presumably were the origin of Arizona’s economy, and are claimed to be depicted on the state seal. There are a lot of politics going on with this bill, none of which will ultimately benefit either the current Museum or the State of Arizona.

So what will happen to the valuable and beautiful minerals? Nobody is saying. How about selling them to the highest bidder? At least those who bought them would appreciate what they had, unlike the State.