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 thes ...

located in Leadville, Colorado, 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.

History

The museum was incorporated in 1987, and it was to be built on land owned by the

Colorado School of Mines The Colorado School of Mines, informally called Mines, is a public research university in Golden, Colorado, founded in 1874. The school offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, science, and mathematics, with a focus on en ...

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 Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale. The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcars, t ...

, 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 ...

room, with many specimens of native gold, 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 Georgius Agricola (; born Georg Pawer or Georg Bauer; 24 March 1494 – 21 November 1555) was a German Humanist scholar, mineralogist and metallurgist. Born in the small town of Glauchau, in the Electorate of Saxony of the Holy Roman Empire ...

Janet Zaph Briggs Janet Zaph Briggs (February 7, 1912 – January 25, 1974) was an American metallurgist, the first woman to earn a mining engineering degree from Stanford University, and an expert on molybdenum. She was inducted into the National Mining Hall of F ...

, Gertrude Selma Sober, Meyer Guggenheim,

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,

Ed Schieffelin Edward Lawrence Schieffelin (1847–1897) was an U.S. Army Indian Scouts, Indian scout and prospecting, prospector who discovered silver in the Arizona Territory, which led to the founding of Tombstone, Arizona. He partnered with his brother Al an ...

Harrison Schmitt Harrison Hagan Schmitt (born July 3, 1935) is an American geologist, retired NASA astronaut, university professor, former U.S. senator from New Mexico, and the most recent living person—and only person without a background in military aviation� ...

, Paddy Martinez,

Horace Tabor Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...

, Fred Chester Bond and Edmund J. Longyear, founder of Boart Longyear. The Hall of Fame is criticized by

James Loewen James William Loewen (February 6, 1942August 19, 2021) was an American sociologist, historian, and author. He was best known for his 1995 book, '' Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong''. Early life 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 In the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants or WASPs are an ethnoreligious group who are the white, upper-class, American Protestant historical elite, typically of British descent. WASPs dominated American society, culture, and polit ...

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
{{coord, 39.2512, -106.2941, type:landmark_region:US-CO, display=title 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 ...

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