New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

Arthur Montgomery was born in December 1909 in New York City and grew up there. He was interested in science and by the time he started college he had decided to study geology and in 1927 he entered Princeton University. He graduated with a BS in Geology in 1931. After graduating he went to Europe and in the summer of 1931 he visited the Island of Seiland in far north Norway to collect minerals. During 1932 he worked at Ward’s Natural Science under George English to learn more about the mineral business. In June of 1933 he made his first collecting trip to the west with R. C. Vance of the American Museum They collected topaz in the Thomas Range of Utah and opal at Virgin Valley in Nevada.

He next partnered with Ed Over and together they did some serious collecting. In 1934 they collected in the Thomas Range and then at Devil’s Head, Colorado. In 1935 they mined for tourmaline at Mesa Grande in southern California; in 1936 with Ed Henderson they worked for three months at Prince of Wales Island, Alaska and then in September opened up the Little Green Monster Mine for variscite near Fairfield Utah, in 1937 they returned to Fairfield and in 1938 they worked at Mount Antero in Colorado. When World War Two started Montgomery and Over switched to a search for strategic mineral deposits for TAMCO (Titanium Alloy Manufacturing Company) from 1939 to 1941.

In 1942, Montgomery made his first trip to the Harding Mine in New Mexico. This was the beginning of his love of New Mexico. TAMCO turned down the property so Montgomery started working there and purchased the mine. He worked mining tantalum until 1947, when he started graduate school at Harvard. He did his Ph.D. thesis on the “Pre-Cambrian Geology of the Picuris Range, north-central New Mexico” which kept him coming back to New Mexico. He received his Ph.D. in 1951 and his thesis was published as New Mexico Bureau of Mines Bulletin 30 in 1953. In 1951 he started teaching geology at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, where I was his student, and retired in 1975 as full professor. During all these years he returned to New Mexico every summer. Mining continued at the Harding for beryl from 1949 to 1959. During some of those years it was the leading beryl producer in the United States. He continued his fieldwork and was co-author of “Geology of Part of the Southern Sangre de Cristo Mountains, New Mexico” and “Trail Guide to the Geology of the Upper Pecos.” In 1978 he donated the Harding Mine to the University of New Mexico. From 1978 until his death he devoted himself to his religion, first as a volunteer at a nursing home in Trinidad, Colorado until 1993 and then living with a group from the religion in Albuquerque.

He said this about New Mexico: “Living in this place, in such scenery and close to such simple earth-loving people, has been the finest experience I have ever had. I’ll never be the same again, and I’ve been very lucky.” He died in December 1999 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

References:

1. Matrix, a Journal of the History of Minerals, 2000, The Life and Times of Arthur Montgomery: vo. 8, no. 2, 112p.
2. Miller, J.P., Montgomery, A., and Sutherland, P.K., 1963, Geology of Part of the Southern Sangre de Cristo Mountains, New Mexico, New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Memoir 11, 106p.
3. Montgomery, Arthur, 1934, Digging for Opal in Virgin Valley: Rocks and Minerals, v.9, no.10, p.141-145.
4. Montgomery, Arthur, 1935, Minerals of the Thomas Range, Utah: Rocks and Minerals, v.10, no.11, p.161-168.
5. Montgomery, Arthur, 1937, The Epidote Localities of Prince of Wales Island: Rocks and Minerals, v.12, no.7, p.195-208.
6. Montgomery, Arthur, 1938, Storm over Antero: Rocks and Minerals, v.13, no.12, p.355-367.
7. Montgomery, Arthur, 1953, Pre-Cambrian Geology of the Picuris Range, north-central New Mexico: New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Bulletin 30, 89p.
8. Montgomery, Arthur, 1997, Reminiscences of a Mineralogist: Matrix Publishing Company, Dillsburg, PA, 82p.
9. Sutherland, P.K., and Montgomery, A, 1960, Trail Guide to the Geology of the Upper Pecos: New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Scenic Trips to the Geologic Past, No. 6, 83p.