The Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, was a museum focused on minerals and mining.
It began in 1884 as a temporary exhibit at Arizona's first territorial fair. The exhibit was very popular and was moved into a permanent building on the state fairgrounds in 1919. It 1991 it was moved to its own location. Its wonderful exhibits included more than 3,000 minerals, rocks, fossils, and artifacts related to the mining industry, a very big part of Arizona's history. The entire collection is said to hold more than 22,500 specimens.
It also held an extensive library of maps and records showing Arizona mine information and mining reference material. The museum offered lapidary classes, rock clubs held their meetings here, and they had an
outreach program that traveled around the state, teaching school kids about earth sciences. It is estimated that 56,000 people visited the museum annually.
In 2010 the Arizona Historical Society, a state government agency, took control of the museum from the Arizona Department of Mines and Mineral Resources, under provisions of a new state law. In a press conference on February 12, 2010 Governor Jan Brewer announced that a Centennial Museum would be established in the building currently occupied by the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum. It is estimated that this conversion will take approximately 9 million dollars and the museum supporters hope to raise that through private donations. They hope to have the museum open in time for Arizona's centennial birthday February 14, 2012. Of course once the museum is opened it is estimated it will cost the taxpayers 6 million dollars a year to run it.
On Saturday, April 30, 2011, the Arizona Historical Society fired the staff and closed the Arizona Mining & Mineral Museum. This was a month earlier than expected.
I am not trying to make a political statement. I understand that for everyone who is upset with this decision, there are people who support it. I do not know how many taxpayer's dollars it took to run the Mineral Museum. I do know this museum was supported by mining companies and volunteers from the mining industry. I also know the Arizona Historical Society is an important organization. They were founded in 1864 to preserve and document history. They already oversee 4 museums in our state and the collections in their museum facilities throughout the state, number in excess of three million objects.
Of course not everyone cares about rocks and minerals. We personally were intimately involved in this museum. From donating specimens, to selling to their gift shop, to researching their vast resources of material available. Therefore I just wish to express my distress. I want to thank the wonderful staff at the museum, especially Nyal Niemuth, chief mining engineer for the Department of Mines, who truly loved his job and was always extremely informative and helpful. I also want to thank my fellow rock dealers and collectors who gave their support to the museum and the ones who donated or loaned lovely specimens-some extremely valuable!- to be displayed so that the public could enjoy them.
It is said that the new museum will continue to have an extensive display of Arizona rocks and mineral specimens. Unfortunately I do not believe there are definite plans yet and there is no provision in the plan that the curator should have rock or mineral specimen knowledge. I hope so!
http://www.oakrocks.net/