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Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum
1502 W Washington St
Phoenix, AZ 85007
(602) 771-1611
Phoenix, AZ 85007
(602) 771-1611
- Hours:
Mon-Fri. 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Sat. 11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
3 reviews for Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum
Had a great morning at this "gem" of a museum, located right in the middle of Downtown. The scope is vast with a great collection, especially really impressive crystals. The Rose Mofford Collection of "stuff" the former governor collected over her tenure in office is interesting, especially the biggest rattlesnake I ever saw- stuffed- Supposedly the governor snuffed the thing personally. It must have been eighteen inches around and about seven feet long. There must be a hundred different kachinas of all kinds.
There was a clever display for Thanksgiving of an entire feast table, and all the items were rocks. It looked delicious. I'd have liked to see more about the mining technology, but they did have some nice models of open pit copper mines and a cutaway of a shaft with all the timbering, etc. At two bucks a head, it's well worth spending an hour or so there. My son the geologist could have spent a week there, I'm sure.
The nice lady at the front desk was very helpful and enthusiastic, but apparently not a Mofford supporter. I guess female governors are an Arizona tradition. You can take home some rocks from a free dump and they have a pretty nice gift shop with some nice jewelry. You can watch lapidaries cutting gems in a lab in the rear. Outside are some giant mining equipment, but don't climb on them.
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So I'm not a geologist. But my friend is. So I can appreciate that this would be entirely exciting for some folks. We paid $2/person to get in. There was a sign that said "kids" under 18 are free, a perk for those with youngsters or teenagers.
I would concur with Carina in that the museum is fairly small, but houses a pretty impressive collection of rocks, crystals, forms, etc for it's size and scope. It's also kind of cool to see the amount of copper and unique geological forms that reside within Arizona.
We spent about 45 minutes or an hour here and I felt like that was plenty. The highlight for us was the Rose Mofford room, housing a ton of her awesome stuff. A turquoise encrusted violin (or viola...i'm not good with that stuff)...seriously? Pretty awesome. A ton of her plaques, photos, and interesting bits that she collected over her time are up on the walls. So that was pretty neat.
Also, they have a section of rocks that look like food. Geologists gotta get some laughs somewhere right!?
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I'm a huge nerd -- I love crystals. When I found out about this museum I dragged along my suffering hubby and cousin. She has this unholy and frankly, an embarrassing love of rocks so she was only too happy to go.
This somewhat small museum houses an amazing collection of rocks and crystals in various stages. It's not quite the collection one would find in say...the Chicago Museum of Mining and Minerals, but this is darn good, too!
It's a bit disorganized, but if you're happy to wander and read you won't have any problems here.
The staff is friendly and helpful. The gift shop? So so. Nothing I'd write home about.
There is a nominal fee to get in, but you do tend to spend a lot of time roaming around and looking at rocks and various crytsals. They've got a hefty collection of them. I wish they had more precious gemstones in their finished cut and polished state, but I was quite happy with what I found.
It pays to return every few months because they have new exhibits and some of them are quite cute. So far my most favorite display they did was make food out of various rocks and crystals...it was amazing and so realistic. When you got up close and studied the 'food', you soon realized that it's all rock and crystals. One could tell it took a lot of time and effort to get that done.
It's a great way to pass an afternoon and even a person who dislikes rocks and gemstones would definitely be enthralled with this museum.
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