The National Mining Hall of Fame 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 ...
located in
Leadville, Colorado
The City of Leadville is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Statutory city, statutory city that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only List of municipalities in Colorado, incorporated municipality in Lake County, Colorad ...
, United States, dedicated to commemorating the work of miners and people who work with natural resources. The museum also participates in efforts to inform the public about the mining industry.
The National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum is the only national mining museum with a federal charter, which was passed in a joint resolution (S.J.Res.192) of the second session of the 100th Congress of the United States of America and approved by President Ronald Reagan on November 14, 1988.
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History
The museum was incorporated in 1987, and it was to be built on land owned by the
Colorado School of Mines in Golden. As the building was to be built, the town of Leadville was facing hard times. With the closure of mines in Leadville in the 1980s, some possible contributors withdrew their contributions. After the chairman of the project, Doug Watrous, asked Richard Moolick, another board director, to negotiate with the city of Leadville, he came back with the offer. Moolick said they offered $0.50 a year for a 110-year lease. But the museum still needed money, so Joe Shoemaker, a former state senator, suggested that the museum seek 100 contributors that would donate
$1,000.00 each. It took one year, but the museum was able to raise all the money. In 1988, the museum moved to a building that was the former
Leadville Junior High School and before that the
Leadville High School.
Museum exhibits
The museum occupies . Major exhibits include an elaborate
model railroad, a walk-through replica of an underground hardrock mine, the
Gold Rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...
room, with many specimens of
native gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
, a large
collection of mineral specimens, a mining art gallery and a gift shop.
The National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum is a federally chartered memorial for men and women who have achieved lasting greatness in the mining industry and related fields. Inductees to the National Mining Hall of Fame are selected by the museum's board of governors. A candidate must have made significant contributions to the American mining scene. Consideration is given to prospectors, miners, mining leaders, engineers, teachers, financiers, inventors, journalists, rascals, geologists and others. A database of inductees to the Hall of Fame is available here. Notable honorees include
Georgius Agricola,
Janet Zaph Briggs,
Gertrude Selma Sober,
Meyer Guggenheim
Meyer Guggenheim ( , ; February 1, 1828 – March 15, 1905) was the patriarch of what became known as the Guggenheim family in the United States, which became one of the world's wealthiest families during the 19th century, and remained so during t ...
,
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
,
James M. Hyde
James McDonald Hyde (1873–1943) was a metallurgist who designed the first significant froth flotation plant in the United States. He also served as a member of the Los Angeles, California, City Council from 1931 to 1939.
Biography
James M. Hyd ...
,
Ed Schieffelin,
Harrison Schmitt,
Paddy Martinez
Patricio "Paddy" Martinez (1881– August 26, 1969)"Deaths elsewhere— Man who sparked rush for uranium", ''Miami News'', August 26, 1969, p2 was an American prospector and shepherd who discovered uranium at Haystack Mesa in the San Juan Bas ...
,
Horace Tabor,
Fred Chester Bond
Fred Chester Bond (June 10, 1899 – January 23, 1977) was an American mining engineer. A graduate of the Colorado School of Mines, he worked in the mining equipment and ore milling equipment business of Allis-Chalmers from 1930 to 1964.
Bond ...
and Edmund J. Longyear, founder of
Boart Longyear
Boart Longyear is an international mineral exploration company founded in 1890 in the United States. It is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, with regional offices and operations in the Asia-Pacific region, North and South America, Europe, a ...
.
The Hall of Fame is criticized by
James Loewen in his book ''Lies Across America'' for over emphasis on scientists, mining executives, and owners of vast mining properties. He states that "Only fourteen people - 12 percent of the total - represent individual miners, prospectors and explorers, politicians, labor leaders, philanthropists, and all others." The people commemorated are predominantly
white Anglo-Saxon Protestant men, while historically mining has been one of America's most multicultural occupations. Loewen also criticizes the museum for its lack of any kind of memorial dedicated to the thousands and thousands who have lost their lives laboring in the coal mines.
Social, labor, safety, and environmental issues related to coal mining are now explored in "Buried Sunlight: Coal Mining in America," an exhibit that opened in 2017.
References
External links
National Mining Hall of Fame
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Mining in the United States
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 ...
Mining museums in Colorado
Museums in Lake County, Colorado
Museums established in 1977
Patriotic and national organizations chartered by the United States Congress
1977 establishments in Colorado
National museums of the United States
Private congressionally designated national museums of the United States