Mineral specimens and mining artifacts - 06/23/2011 05:19 PM
Here are some things from the Picher mining field. Picher started as a tent city about 1910. It was a hardrock lead and zinc mining town that started toward the end of the old west and argueably the toughest western mining town of the era up to the late 1950's. Hardrock mining refered to the chert that the minerals were mined out of. The field supplied 90% of the lead used for ammunition in WWI and WWII for the USA. It was an exteremely important mineral source for the country.
What you see are various crystaline specimens of lead, zinc and calcite. A bronze portrait bust of my father, sculpted and cast by me, from a photo when he was 21 working at the C K and E, the deepest mine in the field at 420 feet, after WWII.
The specimines were brought up by my father, my grandfather in the 20's and 30's and a great uncle that was a mining engineer for Eagle-Picher.
The miners dinner bucket belonged to my grandfather. The carbide lamps are early specimins from the turn of the century. The ones that look like oil cans are sunshine lamps that are pre 1900.
Steve Ray
What you see are various crystaline specimens of lead, zinc and calcite. A bronze portrait bust of my father, sculpted and cast by me, from a photo when he was 21 working at the C K and E, the deepest mine in the field at 420 feet, after WWII.
The specimines were brought up by my father, my grandfather in the 20's and 30's and a great uncle that was a mining engineer for Eagle-Picher.
The miners dinner bucket belonged to my grandfather. The carbide lamps are early specimins from the turn of the century. The ones that look like oil cans are sunshine lamps that are pre 1900.
Steve Ray