Mining Exhibit Hopes to Put ‘Life’ Into Geology

When the new home for the California State Mining and Mineral Exhibit opens at this Mother Lode country outpost next summer, visitors will be able to feel an earthquake, walk through a gold mine shaft and watch turn-of-the-century mining equipment in action.

Project designer Tim Dewitt said the 100-year-old, 19,000-piece state rock collection, including everything from gold nuggets to uniquely shaped minerals from foreign countries, will be the magnet for rock hounds, but he hopes to create a display of “living geology” that will appeal to everyone.

An estimated 1.5 million people a year pass through Mariposa on the way to nearby Yosemite National Park, and many of those travelers are expected to stop and visit the exhibit, Dewitt said.

Construction got under way this month and opening is scheduled for July, 1988.

“We want the exhibit to take the Earth from its beginning and discuss the phases it went through,” Dewitt said.

Plate Tectonics Exhibit

Examples include a display which will show the dynamics of plate tectonics, a moving floor that imitates an earthquake, an area to pan for gold and operating pieces of 19th-Century mining equipment like a “stamp” mill used to crush ore.

“We plan to devote 25% of the space for the learning experience of living geology,” he said.

The exhibit, to be located at the Mariposa County Fairgrounds, will also include a 250-foot mine shaft dug into the side of the hill in 1958 as part of a fair exhibit.

DeWitt plans to upgrade the graphics and dioramas in the shaft, which shows models of miners blasting, digging and carting out quartz containing gold ore.

The State Mineral Exhibit was created by the Legislature in 1880 and spent its first century in San Francisco. Its first location was in a small room in the San Francisco office of the California State Mining Bureau. It was stored briefly above a stable on Sutter Street, but disagreeable smells and repeated robberies of gold nuggets forced its movement to another site.

Moved to Market Street

By 1892, the exhibit was drawing more than 100,000 people a year, and in January, 1899, it was moved to the new Ferry Building at the foot of San Francisco’s Market Street.

By the 1930s, few rock specimens were being added to the collection, and by 1982 the exhibit was gathering dust but few visitors. The state refused to pay any more rent at the Ferry Building and the exhibit faced the prospect of going into storage.

Several California cities expressed interest in rescuing the exhibit, including Mariposa and San Francisco.

Ted Hilliard, an aide to state Sen. Ken Maddy (R-Fresno), and Mariposa Supervisor Eric Erickson spearheaded the political battle. San Francisco officials were unsuccessful in blocking Mariposa’s efforts, despite a lawsuit.

In December, 1982, the California Department of Conservation selected Mariposa as the new site.

Nonprofit Association

Private citizens from Mariposa and throughout the state formed the nonprofit California Mineral Exhibit Assn. in 1983, and in mid-June of that year most of the 19,000 rocks were moved from San Francisco to Mariposa, the overloaded truck drivers careful to avoid the highway scales.

Much of the exhibit is in storage at the historic old jail in Mariposa, but some rocks are displayed at a temporary site at a local motel.

A total of $750,000 has been raised in public and private funds for the project. Those funds will be used to renovate some fairground buildings and construct others for a total exhibit space of 6,000 square feet.

DeWitt plans to use old mine materials and rustic wood to give the mining complex an original flavor.

Volunteer docents such as Elmer Stroming can give visitors an authentic account of his mining days. Stroming, 74, was working on a Merced County farm for $1 a day in 1935 when he quit and went to work in a Mariposa gold mine for $5 a day.