New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

The Magdalena mining district was discovered in 1866 by a California miner who found a rich piece of silver ore in the Magdalena Mountains. Subsequently, numerous mines and prospects were opened and worked until by 1910 total production from the district was over $50,000. The district continued to produce into the 1940s.

Kelly Mine

My first recollection of the mining town of Kelly was in 1947 when I traveled there with my grandfather, a traveling salesman. The Kelly mine was still working, and the town was laid out along one main street with houses and boardwalks on both sides. My most vivid memory is seeing an old time sheriff coming down the boardwalk complete with hat, vest, badge, and six-guns at his waist. Impressed the bejeepers out of a twelve year old!

My next experience with the Kelly mine was in the early 1950s when Bill Adkinson and I spent a week exploring the district. We occupied one of the abandoned houses and spent our days exploring and collecting at the many old mines in the area. We had noticed that there was a family living several houses up from us, and one evening we went up and introduced ourselves. The man who lived there was Fito Tafoya, and he had been a miner at the Kelly mine. In the course of our conversation he asked us if we would like to go into the mine and see where the blue smithsonite came from. Both Bill and I leaped at this opportunity and after dinner the next evening Mr. Tafoya led us down into the mine. The main entrance adit was mostly caved, but we managed to squeeze around some timbering and get into the main adit. From there we shortly turned left down a small ladder and into another tunnel. We went down through some stopes and, at one point, slithered through a fissure tilted at a 45-degree angle with some very dubious timbering. The rest of the journey was convoluted, and I couldn’t possibly repeat it today. We finally got to a stope that had the blue smithsonite and were able to collect a number of nice specimens, making our first trip a successful one.

Over the next few years as Bill and I pursued our educations in geology we managed to return to the Kelly mine a number of times adding to our collections. On one visit we brought along our soon-to-be wives, Carol and Colleen, thinking they might like to see the smithsonite stope. They took one look at the entrance and told us they would wait for us outside. We then got the brilliant idea that, since they were staying outside, they could help us bring specimens out of the mine. We had found a shaft somewhat near the smithsonite stope, and we dropped a rope down so the girls could then pull our specimens up and out, saving us the trouble of carrying our packs out through the mine. The girls agreed, and the plan went well until we got the packs tied to the rope. The girls started to pull the packs up, and they got up about 30 feet when they stopped and then started to slowly slide back down. On the surface, the plan started well, but the weight was too much, and the girls started sliding toward the shaft. From below we yelled, "The packs are coming back down!!!!" The packs came crashing down. We repacked everything into several, much smaller and lighter loads that could be managed.

Juanita Mine

I had noticed on some of the maps in the USGS report on the Magdalena district (USGS Professional Paper 200) that the Juanita mine was closely related to the Kelly mine, running along the southerly continuation of the Kelly ore zone. Most of the ore in the Juanita mine was oxidized, and there was much quartz-barite. At the time there was a persistent rumor that the Juanita and Kelly mines were connected underground. I decided to see if I could enter the mine and do some exploring with a good friend, Ray Coudray. The main adit was open and we had no problem getting back to where much of the stoping had been done. The main adit ended in a "T" intersection, and to the left it opened into a large stope that plunged downward into darkness.

Even as a teenager I realized that that way could get me into big trouble, as I didn’t have any idea how I was going to traverse all the way to the Kelly mine and then out. We prudently decided to explore the tunnels and stopes to the right and were able to find some outstanding quartz-barite specimens. Many of these were barite crystal aggregates lightly coated with quartz. We were able to open a small vug that had light brown single blades of barite on a druzy quartz background. The barite specimens from the Juanita mine were some of the best I'd ever seen, and there may be a potential for more to be found.

The 1950s were a magical time for collecting in New Mexico. Even as teenagers we were able to go just about everywhere and access never seemed to be a problem. We were able to collect very nice specimens from the various mines and prospects we visited, and the specimens seemed to be abundant. In all our collecting trips I don’t recall seeing any other collectors, although there must have been some. It was a great time to be a collector and have a collection. It also inspired many of us to go on and become geologists, mining engineers, and enter other mineral-related professions.