Nature's Incredible Jewelry Box

FOR A ROCKIN' GOOD TIME TRY THE ARIZONA MINING MUSEUM

IN THE SUMMER OF 1992, then-Arizona State Representative Polly Rosenbaum led a group of Japanese tourists through the sparkling display of minerals and gemstones at the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum in Phoenix. A young woman in the group, obviously impressed by the jewellike quality of the rocks, suddenly interrupted Rosenbaum's narrative. "What factory were they manufactured in?" asked the inquisitive tourist.

"There is no factory," Rosenbaum replied. "We get them right out of the ground where we find them."

To some this visitor's question may seem naive. To the many others who have not wandered into the belly of a mountain and seen firsthand the marvel of mineral composition created by natural forces, the question makes perfect sense. Can these objects with delicate crystals that look like miniature forests surrounded by vibrant colors be anything but the work of an artist? In fact they are created by accidents of Nature, the slow and steady collision of water and chemicals, ancient volcanic eruptions, a little jog in the tectonic plates, heating and cooling, and natural gases that swim in the labyrinth of bedrock far below the surface of the Earth.

The results of these physical and chemical interactions 3,200 specimens on display, to be exact - fill the first floor of the Arizona Mining Museum's "new" home in a building constructed in 1922 as the El Zaribah Shrine Auditorium, located in the heart of Government Mall at 1502 W. Washington Street in Phoenix. Arizona has long been a mining state. Spaniards using Indian labor mined gold and silver here as long ago as the 18th century, and fabulous gold strikes were made by other prospectors a hundred years later. Lead, zinc, and copper, among other minerals, were found in abundance, though today copper dominates all mining activity in Arizona.

A little more than 100 years ago, someone decided it would be a good idea toshow the general public a display of sam-ples from the natural jewelry box where some miners had grown rich and others had gone crazy. The Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum, dedicated to educating the public and preserving Arizonas mineral and mining history, traces its roots to a first exhibit at the State Fair of 1894.

ARIZONA MINING MUSEUM

In 1917 James Goodwin, a Tempe farmer who also owned the Magmatic Copper Mine near Superior, along with other supporters, convinced the state legislature to appropriate funds for a permanent minerals building at the fairground. With the assistance of several mining companies operating in Arizona, the building was completed in 1919.

There it remained for the next 72 years, closed only during the Great Depression and again during World War II, when the state fairground was converted into a tank maintenance and repair yard. Long before the museum moved to its present location, it was clear that more space and a better means of displaying its extraordinary collection were needed. In 1988 the state purchased the old Shriner's Auditorium and, because of its architectural and historical significance, added it to the state historic register in 1989. The interior was promptly gutted and remodeled to display about one-third of the mining museum's trove of 15,000 mineral specimens, including 300 to 500 specimens from James Goodwin's collection.

Among the specimens on display, some are remarkable. In the museum's lobby, for example, there sits a 300-pound azurite nugget laced with bits of malachite in a dizzying swirl of dark blue (the azurite) laced with the intense green of the malachite.

"This nugget is supposed to be quite valuable," said museum curator Glenn Miller, "but how would you ever replace it? Where would you ever find an azurite nugget this big?"

Equally remarkable though not as colorful is an eight-foot-high spiral of copper extracted from a mine at Ajo in southwestern Arizona.

"Look at this thing," said Miller, running a hand along the rigid surface of the ore. "It's hard to believe something like this wasn't done by a sculptor. It looks like a piece of sculpture, but this is the way it came out of the ground. With a lot of these minerals, you have to chip or scratch them to know what they are, so I want people to touch and feel as much of this stuff as possible."

Arizona is known as the Copper State, and many get to see the mineral in its raw form as part of their daily work routine. More domestic copper is mined in Arizona than in any other state. It also is true, said Miller, that more gemstones are found in Arizona than anyplace else in the country, which no doubt accounts for the abundance of rock hounds and professional and amateur geologists who congregate here. Many of these rock hounds, such as Frank Paulich of Phoenix, act as museum volunteers, help with demonstrations of tumbling and polishing minerals, and donate mineral specimens to the collection. Other donations have also come from several mining companies.

Many of the volunteers have specific esoteric interests which they will happily share with a willing listener. One woman, for example, collects only sand; another collector gathers only calcite. Paulich is fascinated by spheres and has built machines to grind rocks into smooth globes the size of a softball. Once, to his surprise, he produced two spheres that contained minerals that fluoresced under black light, making the globe look like a miniature Earth seen from a returning space vehicle.

In September, 1993, an evocative relic of Arizona's mining past a baby-gauge steam locomotive completed its journey from the rocky and nearly inaccessible Coronado Incline near the eastern Arizona copper mining town of Morenci to the entrance of the mining museum in Phoenix. Bearing the inglorious name of Locomotive No. 2, this tiny engine, manufactured in Pennsylvania in 1882, used to haul ore cars from the Coronado Mine to the top of the nearly vertical Coronado Incline. There the ore cars were attached to cables and lowered 1,500 feet to the Coronado Railroad which carried the load to a concentrator.

Bill Conger, a historian with copper giant Phelps Dodge Corp., wrote in the Morenci Copper Review in May, 1993: "When the [Coronado] Mine was abandoned nearly 70 years ago, three of the tiny locomotives were left standing on rails near the old mine. They were so inaccessible that no one could devise a way to get them down off the mountain until March, 1990."

That month Phelps Dodge engineers managed to pluck the locomotives off the mountain, and all three were restored. Eventually an old headframe, the structure at a mine entrance that houses the hoist for lifting ore from underground shafts, will be erected outside the museum's west wall. The Boras Headframe, now a desiccated skeleton, was used intermittently at Phelps Dodge's Boras Shaft, a part of the Copper Queen Mine in Bisbee, from 1917 to 1975. PD donated it to the museum in 1991, and a campaign is under way to raise $62,000 to disassemble and move it some 225 miles to Phoenix. (Arizona Public Service has volunteered to haul the headframe and set it up at the museum.) There is much to see at the mining museum, but one of the most dramatic and illuminating exhibits remains to be built. When completed, a 58-foot-high stope a stope looks like a narrow, rectangular apartment house in an underground mine will provide visitors with a step-by-step illustration of methods used to extract ore from subterranean veins.

The exhibit will be technically accurate and will provide the experience of a mine without any of the dangers inherent in the real thing. It may also convince visitors that exotic and aesthetically pleasing minerals come out of the ground and are not manufactured in factories.

WHEN YOU GO

Phoenix's Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum is at 1502 W. Washington St. It is open 8 A.M. to 5 P.M., weekdays; and 1 to 5 P.M., Saturday. Admission is free. For more information, telephone (602) 255-3795.