Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States | Museum

Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum in Phoenix, Southwestern United States, commemorates the mining industry that helped build Arizona. Arizona is the Nation's number one mining state with the largest value of non-fuel mineral production in the country.
The Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum can trace its origin back to the first Arizona Fair, held in November of 1884. The mineral display was said to "overshadow all else." The collection, already one of the finest in the world, has been growing and improving since that time.
Today, over 23,000 school children and 18,000 other visitors tour Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum in Phoenix, Southwestern, each year. The Museum draws mineral collectors and rockhounds from around the world.
Over 3,000 minerals, rocks, fossils and mining artifacts are on exhibit. Highlighting the collection are the colorful minerals from Arizona's copper mines. Among the spectacular individual specimens on display are an eight-foot specimen of native copper, a large quartz geode - each half weighing 240 pounds, rocks from the first Moon landing, and a fragment of Meteor Crater's meteorite weighing 206 pounds. Exhibits of special interest encompass cases devoted to the lapidary arts featuring cabochons made of minerals from throughout Arizona, faceted gemstones, carved semi-precious bowls and spheres, well-known Arizona specimen localities, displays on mineral crystal systems, habits, causes of color, fulgarites, and fluorescent minerals.
Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum also exhibits the mineral collection of the Arizona Mineral and Mining Museum Foundation and the Mofford Gallery consisting of about 1000 items acquired by former Secretary of State and Governor Rose Mofford during her 51 years of government service.