The California State Mining and Mineral Museum is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

in the

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

system of

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, home to the state's mineral collection, with minerals and gems from all over the world. The museum also interprets the state's

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. ( ...

resources and

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

heritage. It is located in Mariposa, a city in central California, on the

Mariposa County Mariposa County () is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 17,131. The county seat is Mariposa. It is located in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, north of Fresno, east of ...

fairground Fairground most typically refers to a permanent space that hosts fairs. Fairground, Fairgrounds, Fair Ground or Fair Grounds may also refer to: Places Canada * Fairground, Ontario, a community United States * Fairground, St. Louis, a neighbor ...

s. The museum houses a collection that was created in 1880, with the establishment of the California State Mining Bureau. Henry G. Hanks was the first California State Mineralogist and was tasked with managing the collection. The collection was housed in the ''Ferry Building'' in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

until 1983. The collection opened in its current home at the Mariposa County Fairgrounds in 1986. The collection was transferred from the California Department of Conservation to the California Department of Parks & Recreation in 1999. At present, it is the only California State Park without any associated land. Today, the international collection holds over 13,000 minerals,

rocks In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks form the Earth's ...

gems Gems, or gemstones, are polished, cut stones or minerals. Gems or GEMS may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media *Gems (Aerosmith album), ''Gems'' (Aerosmith album), 1988 *Gems (Patti LaBelle album), ''Gems'' (Patti LaBelle album), 1994 *G ...

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...

, and historic artifacts.

Popular exhibits

Some of the museum's most popular exhibits include the

crystalline A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macrosc ...

gold Fricot Nugget, weighing 201

troy ounces Troy weight is a system of units of mass that originated in 15th-century England, and is primarily used in the precious metals industry. The troy weight units are the grain, the pennyweight (24 grains), the troy ounce (20 pennyweights), and the ...

(6.25 kg), the largest one found during the Gold Rush; a working

scale model A scale model is a physical model which is geometrically similar to an object (known as the prototype). Scale models are generally smaller than large prototypes such as vehicles, buildings, or people; but may be larger than small prototypes ...

of a

stamp mill A stamp mill (or stamp battery or stamping mill) is a type of mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking material down is a type of unit operatio ...

which is over 100 years old, demonstrating the process of extracting gold from

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...

rock; and a replica hard rock mine tunnel that allows visitors to experience how it felt to spend the day working in California's hard rock mines. The California State Mining and Mineral Museum has artifacts from the Mother Lode, along with international gems, stones, and other precious artifacts.

Closure proposal

The California Mining and Mineral Museum was one of the 48

California state parks The California Department of Parks and Recreation, more commonly known as California State Parks, manages the California state parks system. The system administers 279 separate park units on 1.4 million acres (570,000 hectares), with over 280 ...

proposed for closure in January 2008 during the

Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian and American actor, film producer, businessman, retired professional bodybuilder and politician who served as the 38th governor of California between 2003 and 2011. ''Time'' ...

Administration as part of a deficit reduction program.CBS5.com: List Of Calif. Parks To Close In Budget Proposal

References

External links

Official California State Mining and Mineral Museum website
State parks of California {{Subject bar, California, Environment, United States Mineralogy museums Mining museums in California California Gold Rush Museums in Mariposa County, California Geology museums in California Natural history museums in California Parks in Mariposa County, California Museums established in 1999 1999 establishments in California